I am a newbie so not much help, but I did grow New Day last year and LOVED it. It looks like it made it through the winter with some die back but I did not winter protect at all (with last year being my first year I just kind of wanted to see what would happen and what would survive, I do plan to winter protect this year) Here are two New Day blooms in a bouquet with Double Delight, Headliner, and a few other soft pinks (probably Bewitched) and Lady X. If New Day had not made it through the winter I would definitely be replacing it because of the few yellows I planted last year this one was the prettiest with beautifully shaped blooms. I am no help with New Zealand, just looked it up on hmf because of all of the praise in this post, it does look like a nice soft baby pink and I would love to add it at some point. You'll have to keep us posted how it turns out if you decide on that one. New Year has always looked pretty to me on hmf, I bought one last year but it was mislabeled. I just bought one this year so hopefully I can give it a go. Never thought I would enjoy those oranges as much as I did last year since I'm a soft colors fan, but I really wanted to give New Year a go and couldn't pass it up when I saw it last week in one of those bagged pots. We'll see. Thanks for your suggestion to not dig up stuff so early in that other post about SPing. I had no idea that some could show life as last as June, and that if it did come back I could replant deeper. I thought it was done when that bud union went through one of our winters above ground! Fortunately I only pulled out a few that showed no life but the rest I'm iffy on I will leave in and let spring work its magic.

Maggie, There are several companies that make the murder mystery parties. I like Murders by Vincent, BePuzzeled, or a la carte. They seem to be the easiest to use. They come with complete instructions on what and when to do things. The last one I did was called Chinese Takeout(I got it on ebay) and I did just like it said. I got chinese takeout. I sent a menu from the local chinese restaraunt and everyone told me what they wanted. I got lunch portions because they are large enough for dinner. I prepared the appetizers except for the egg rolls they were included in lunch. For desert I served bananas and strawberries with strawberry gel on top and brownies just like at our local chinese buffet. Once I decided what game I wanted to play I looked over the suspects and assigned charactures from there. When you send out the invitations you let each person know who they are and the invitations have a brief descritption of each character and what they would dress like, along with a story line giving city, year that kind of stuff. Your guests do not HAVE to dress in character but it does make it more fun. My husband was the chef, so we borrowed a chefs jacket and I was the long lost daughter of the woman who was murdered. My character was very excentric and didnt like things that matched...how easy was that. When the guests arrived as appitizers are being served with coctails everyone is given a script ( almost like a little brouchure). It tells you more about your character and tells you how to play the game. Normally in part 1 that is done over appetizers and it will tell you what to disclose and what not to tell, it will also guide you to ask questions of other people there. If everyone is new and has never played this before it does not hurt to ask if everyone has told everything they need to before you go to the next part ( or Act) and course throughout dinner. I normally try to do appitizer, dinner, dessert & coffee. Just remember that if you do one of these, that if everyone you invited does not show up ...you cant play unless they are a non suspect. The game we are doing on newyears eve I have one guest that is very very shy and wants to come but is not real sure how much they will participate so I am making him a non suspect that way he will participate as much as he wants. The best part of these parties is the party favors......I love that part. I found some small wedding photo albums at the $ store and bubbles, and with elvis being there I also had to get the new reese cups that have peanut butter and banana and a picture of Elvis on the front...I hope I didnt go on to long and I hope this was not too confusing...its been a long day and if I didnt answer all you questions let me know. Oh one thing I forgot you can buy these games at target they are about 25.00 but if you "WIN" (that makes me crazy) one ebay they are usually pretty reasonable. Donna

I am doing the Quiltville NY mystery. Bonnie's quilts are quite a challenge but you always learn something new, like a new ruler or technique. Her quilts. of course, are always scrappy so you just need to dig in the stash. I am actually working on 3 of her projects...2 blocks she had posted on her blog and she did a Labor Day mystery Old Tobacco Road but I am not finished it and now this one. Today I did some cutting and sewed 10 3 1/2 blocks and squared them and that took me one hour. I still have 110 to make...think that will keep me busy tomorrow. I did one from PP one year and it had snowballs in the border. The instructions were a bit poorly and I could not get my snowballs right so I said phoeey and finished it up. I am not doing any more of their's. Bonnie maintains you need small pieces to make the quilt look good. She seems to like the 98 to 120 count or maybe 360 haha. Still time to join in . Jean

Lois says.......... How was the mystery presented? Did you just have to make x number of certain blocks and the way in which they were assembled was up to you? Yes. You're told how many sub assembly blocks to make and from what colour run. This isn't done all at once, but revealed a bit each day. When all the 2 inch and six inch blocks are finally made ahead of time, they have a grand reveal and tell you how to put them together into a certain number of twelve inch blocks. I didn't pick up on them suggesting any particular way to assemble these blocks, and always.... reserve that for my own discretion anyway. In this case you were told to use twenty different light and same amount of dark fabrics to make each block different. I did it on faith, and was clueless where they were going with it, so therefore really unable to either come up with a colour scheme or even if I did, don't know if I had enough stash to coordinate it anyway, so I just took it on faith and hoped I'd like it. I loved the pattern choice, but think all the wild combinations don't do it justice. But, it was fun, anyway. Glad I did it.