Yes, Permanent Wave is indeed unique in its leaf display, and bloom. It becomes quite showy and large with age. It was a seedling that Mom gave away to a close friend, Jim Langhammer of Royal Oak (thanks Jim for all the garden memories!) who several years later brought it back to her and said it was worthy of registration and a neat name, even though it was all green. She was not a fan of all green hosta unless they had uniqueness. After receiving the plant back into her garden, she wracked her brain (and mine!)for a suitable name. Mom was getting her Saturday hair fixed and as she sat under the hair dryer at the hair salon, her eyes fell on a poster for selling some "Permanent Wave", and thus the name was found. John Kulpa of course is a fantastic hosta hybridizer in his own right - but Whirlwind was a chance find in the trade. There has been a writeup on it and its progeny recently in the AHS Hosta Journal. Thanks, John for the great plants! Bruce

I won't either...;~) I had been helping one of my home care patient's parents with their landscaping, and as I arrived at work one day, the mom greeted me at the door all excited..." Did you see the semen I put around the trees?" I said, "Ummm, nooo..?", as I'm looking out the window and thinking maybe it was some Jerry Baker thing..."OH, you put in some SEDUM! It looks nice" "Sedum, yeah, what'd I say? YIKES!" It apparently was hereditary, her sister asked my advice on a good "ground clutter".

Yarnlover, I do my wrappers in word. When you find a free graphic that you like, just right click on it and save to a file name that you will remember so that you can find it again when needed (I usually file them in a folder I've named "Graphics"). Then after you have opened a word page click on "insert" on the top menu and pick "picture" from the drop down menu and then click on "from file", then you have to pick where you saved the graphic and then left click on it twice and it will appear on your word page. If you need to resize it to fit the wrapper then you can do it in word by using "format picture". Just make sure the original graphic is not too small or too big because it can become distorted when resized. Hope I have helped. If you have any other questions let me know.

Sunny, One of the things that my husband agreed to early on in our marriage, is that if one of our kids wants/needs the step parent to do things for them (because the parent can't), then the child has to ask the step parent, not the parent. When my son wanted a co-signer on a car, I couldn't help him because I had just started my own business. I talked to my husband and he agreed to help but I felt that my son should ask him, not me. My son did ask him and got the car with my husband's help. My husband does the same with his daughter. If she wants something from me, she has to ask me. She still asks him all the time and he tells her, 'you have to ask SM'. My sons got angry a while back because they don't like when my husband has an opinion about anything. They think he should stay out of 'our life' but then I remind him that he's my husband and he is a part of 'our life' and I remind him of the things my husband contributes and that they don't mind when he does something where they benefit. They don't like it but they know it's true. What your husband should have told his daughter is that she would need to ask you to cook the food because he doesn't know how or can't do it all by himself. It really is up to the parent to expect their children (even adult ones) to respect their spouse enough to ask for themselves instead of going through the parent. It's much easier for kids to let themselves believe that their parent is doing everything for them and they don't need the step parent if all they have to do is ask the parent who then asks the step parent. Then they don't really appreciate the step parent because they can tell themself that their parent is the one doing everything for them. It's funny that my son will ask me for something and when I say, you need to ask stepdad yourself... he'll decide 'I don't really need it.' He has been giving my husband a hard time and would rather go without than ask my husband, well, that's HIS problem, not mine.