OMG Sandy, Just read this post and you talked about thrush. That is a nasty, nasty word in my book. I supposedly have asthma and am on the inhaler Advair. After too many, too many bouts with thrush I went cold turkey off of Advair. I got thrush back in February. It got so bad it went to my throat and tonsils. Even my gums were bleeding. I couldn't even drink tea I was in so much agony. I lost 5# because I couldn't eat. I still had thrush in May after a month of being on Diflucam to take it away. I could eat but it still hurt, and forget about taste. I lived on applesauce, jello and pudding. On Father's Day this year I thought I had a small stoke. It felt like someone had stabbed me in the left side of my head with a sharp pencil, then my whole left side went numb, even my tongue. The MRI showed I had a slight brain aneurysm that had healed itself. That was it. I decided the Lord gave me a second chance at life and I wasn't going to abuse it. I am now on a strict low-sodium diet. I have lost 30#. It seems like the pounds are just melting away. If it ain't natural it ain't going in my body. I gave up diet pop, and anything with splenda, neutrasweet or aspartame in it. I have been told I have had asthma and allergies my whole life, and I can't believe the difference. I haven't used an inhaler since February and don't have a problem breathing. I haven't had an asthma attack (thank God) and this is the first year I haven't sneezed my head off during allergy season. I am up to 1.60 miles on the manual treadmill and can bench press 50# on the Bowflex. I don't care what my allergist tells me, I refuse to put anymore steroids into my body. That's what caused the thrush in my mouth and throat, steroids in the Advair inhaler. I feel like I have been reborn. Jenny

Connie, Sorry to be so slow posting. I have not had a chance to be on the computer for very long. I received my seeds on Wednesday. Thank you for the great selection and for hosting this swap. Thanks also to everyone that participated. I can't wait to get the seeds planted. Ginger

Sometimes too big of a deal is made of ploidy, but the general idea for rose people goes like this... Although you can find roses of all sorts that have poor fertility, or are unwilling to cross with certain other categories of roses, one clear category which has fertility issues is triploids. And when you cross a diploid (most species roses, rugosa hybrids, many polyantha types, and many miniatures) with a tetraploid (most HTs, HPs, and many others), you will usually get a triploid. Triploid fertility ranges from not too bad to nonexistent. If your luck is really terrible, you will have reached a hybridizing dead end, but hopefully triploidy's only a bump in the road. Crossing a triploid with a diploid will usually result in diploid offspring, and crossing a triploid with a tetraploid will usually produce tetraploid offspring, so with some luck you can usually get to whatever ploidy you want with one additional crossing. There are some fine roses that are triploid, including a number which have major fertility problems, like Belinda's Dream, an otherwise wonderful rose. So don't take this as a huge slam on triploids, like I said, sometimes too big a deal is made of it. Certain growth characteristics seem to be tied to ploidy, and sometimes a triploid might be just what you want. But for me, intending to cross a (diploid) dwarf poly with a (tetraploid) Portland, it's a bridge to be crossed. Note that this post contains countless extreme oversimplifications. If you want to try your hand at hybridization, you should research ploidy more.

"claimed that it came with a manufacturers warranty" sellers can claim anything. it's called a manufacturer's warranty , and the contract is with the manufacturer - a third party cannot alter the contract without the manuf. written consent which will never happen. storm - let me try and clarify the winds for you. I don't think moja's problem quite meets the vote the free market I was/am talking about. He should not have bought a product from Miele in the first place. By telling people about this he brings the debate forward and can shape the market if he convinces enough people to to not buy Miele gear because they do this or that. Look at the aforementioned Maytag. They used to make superior washers, and no they don't really exist anymore. Enough people vote with their wallets by nit buying their washers because they turned to crap. Re: the Gaggenau / Miele fatherland thing. Gaggenau is highline- high quality - high price everywhere. Miele USA is really a different business than Miele Germany and what I'm saying is they have chosen to position themselves here as ONLY a high quality make. They don't import even half of their offerings to this market, and like I've mentioned to dodge before they are not simply putting a NA plug on their units, shipping them here and jacking up the price over the German/Euro markets. If a product is available both places the prices are very similar after currency variables are considered. Miele simply doesn't offer mid to entry products here. Because they offer a more broad range in Europe their rep. is slightly lower simply because of exclusivity. Benz does the same thing here. You couldn't get a SMART here until they figured out how to distance that brand from MBenz so as not to dilute the mark. They did the same thing with their vans via Freightliner and Dodge. I take exception at your assertion that I bow to the marketing chants or the winds of corp. top floors. I make no bones about being a Miele fan. But I also rec. lots of other makes. It's all dependent on the customer's need/wants. What I really have a problem with is what's moja's complaining about: I tried to save a few bucks by not buying through an authorized distribution channel and now the manuf. won't help me free of charge. The (my) problem is not that he's complaining per se, but that he seems to feel he has no responsibility in this and that it's totally Miele's fault because they are bad or that the system is bad because big government has allowed companies to set prices for their own products and say where they are sold by upholding a decades old practice. My problem with him over the health care thing is his math. Sure an office visit for the flu is cheaper in Canada than walking into the ER here in the USA. No one will rally debate this. ER's are set up for trauma and critical care and that care is very expensive to deliver. My tummy hurts or I have a cough don't really qualify but the public doesn't really feel like waiting because they are soft and or lazy. I saw it in the UK as I worked in an ER for 8 months. Care was no cost out of pocket and people would still come to the ER for sore knees, headaches, whatever instead of making an appointment with their family doctor which was also no cost, simply because they's have to wait several weeks to see him. They wait at the ER too sometimes a whole day while serious stuff like guys that got shot with a nail gun, or wrecked a motorcycle, or broke they arm playing soccer were attended to. Anyway the overall total cost of socialized system is more than a private one and the numbers bear that out. Oh and the CDC doesn't really keep that info, or didn't . It's not in their pervue. If they do now, please point me to the hard data.