I looked up Victoria Magazine and they have little to offer via the Web. I have a few back issues and they had some neat Victorian decor ideas. Still in print so maybe can get one at a news stand. A family friend lives on a street in town with all Victorian houses and she has her front rooms decorated in Victorian, silk wreaths with tea cups and saucers glued on, roses, pearls and ribbon. Velvet throw pillows, heavy gold tassles on the drapery, heavy gilded framed artwork etc... For a bathroom I think to lighten it up with a pink and gold would be cheerful with lace, pearls and roses. You could use wide upholstry trim for the "crown" molding on the walls. Your moose, bear living room reminded me I wanted to make a coffee table I saw. Get an old childs sled, sand it down stain it, seal and attach coffee table legs for a lodge type coffee table. I love plaids and paisley together. Country Curtains have nice curtains on their website and will send you sample swatches. An idea for throw pillows is go to a SalVal or other second hand clothes store and find old sweaters, cut under the arms to make a tube sew one end, stuff a pre made pillow form in and hand stitch the top to make your own designer pillows. I found the 16x16 and the 18x18 pillow forms are a nice size. Hint: get a small sized sweater, they stretch. I am looking this week and next for those gaudy Xmas sweaters with the beads and bling to make xmas pillows from those.

I'd avoid any mulch made from whole trees ground down for mulch. That's the problem with the cypress, the swamps are being logged specifically to grind the trees into mulch. I was just reading about Louisiana allowing private landowners to clearcut their cypress stands at the same time the state is asking for billions of federal tax dollars to restore wetlands. It's positively insane; cypress swamps are known to protect against storms surges and presumably would be some of what would be restored at great expense to us federal taxpayers, while private landowners are profiting from creating the problem. But, any other wood mulch created from whole trees will be just as bad, like the cedar listed. Why cut down a perfectly good tree just to make mulch out of it?? Mulches created from mill waste are fine; mulches from ground up trimmings are fine; mulches from bark are fine so long as the tree was being cut primarily for the wood and the bark is a byproduct. What species of tree will be best depends on what grows locally. Cypress mulch might be fine if you live right next to a cypress mill. I live in Doug-fir and western hemlock territory, so that's what I get. In California, redwood bark and eucalyptus mulch are readily available, but it would be silly to ship them elsewhere. Texas has lots of oak and pine, which we don't have here. Texas should have lots of local pecans too I would think. If I lived in pecan growing territory, I'd use it. I used to live in California, and I used mulches made from rice hulls as it's one of the major crops in NorCal, and makes a good cheap mulch. As far as helping the soil, you want something that will break down and add organic matter - compost, leaf mold, tree trimmings. Barks and woods don't really add much, they're used where people don't want it breaking down.

Bud blast is a symptom of the fungal disease Seifertia azaleae, but may also be caused by a late frost or application of a nitrogen containing fertilizer too late in the season which prevents the buds from hardening off. In all cases the buds turn brown or black. If it is a Seifertia azaleae (or Pycnostysanus or Briosia azaleaea) infection, the dead bud will be covered with short hair-like structures. Seifertia azaleae is best controlled by sanitation, but may be reduced by spraying buds with fungicide. Avoid application of nitrogen after late spring, but phosphorus and potassium may be applied during the growing season. Sanitation: It is important to remove diseased material from the vicinity of a planting. This means removing dead material that harbors spores of fungal disease and dying material that contains eggs of insects. Dying portions of a plant should be cut off and removed. The ground should be cleaned of dead leaves or flower parts. Pruned parts should be removed.

I can see little advantage in using the brown-dyed mulch. As Bullthistle says, most mulch ages to a brown color anyway - the dyed one, I think, stays a darker brown over the season, but there is little difference in the long run. I do know that the black mulch, esp. if bought when freshly dyed, will come off on gloves and clothing, and is fairly permanent - I helped a friend spread some at their house. I worry enough about unwanted stuff in my soil that I would be reluctant to add anything I didn't HAVE to. Getting a soil test is a good idea, in general. However, as long as you aren't using very freshly chipped material (say within the past month or so), there should be no leaching of nitrogen from the soil, except possibly at the interface of the mulch and the soil surface. This is usually not enough to worry about, especially if you are using aged mulch products.