Beautiful!! Your pics are clear and crisp and the flowers are beautifully set off by each other. I especially love the pic with the phlox. I also love the pics of the pink tulips with the yellow daffodils--that seems to me like the ultimate spring bulb color combo. Thanks for posting your beauties.

Yes, I think all pansies are cold hardy. It's the summer that seems to kill them. I bought mine in six packs back in September or October and planted them out then. I learned this about pansies from the gardens at Temple Square in Salt Lake City. In the fall, they plant pansies, wallflowers, stock, Iceland poppies, dianthus, and others. You can read how they do it in this great article I just found online, excerpted out of a book called "Temple Square Gardening". You should give it a try -- I think next year, I'm going to include Iceland poppies and wallflowers in my fall planting. As far as growing bulbs through phlox, I have a few that are accidentally doing that, because the phlox spread further than I expected, but I don't think they don't look very good. The phlox is so thick that it kind of pulls up with the tulip or daffodil as it grows through and it looks kind of messy. Basically, it looks like an accident, which it is! I suppose if you worked on it a bit by smoothing down the phlox carpet around the bulb stems, it might look OK. I do think it would be hard to fertilize those bulbs after their bloom, since the phlox will be in the way. But it might look good with a little work!

I got 917.254941 that has manual clutch with simple brake that stops the spindles. It has spring that when you disegage it the spring puts tension on the brake and the brake stops the blades (clearly shows it in the IPB brakdown in my manual, but it gives no instructions on how to work on it. I think they was to send sears mechanic out for that. Somebody ask the question on the elect clutch models does the clutch brake the blades. IMO no when you push in the RIO knob the cuts 12Vs to the clutch and cause it to free wheel. so there much me a seperate system to stop the blades. I know my aunt model 917.270762 has a manual lever but and elect clutch with no RIO push/pull switch. For what I remember as the lever goes up it releases the spindle brakes maunally and then kicks in the elect clutch. which the brake is similar design to my braking system due to the maunal over the hump lever. So the big question is IMO does these models have rio/buttoms or manual over the hump lever with or without elect clutch?

RE: "Actually in organized tests of amending of planting holes using controls (blocks of plants without any amending) the less friendly portions were those amended." Can someone cite the authority for that propostion please? I have heard lots of people say 'controlled studies say not to amend soil when you plant a tree', and I'm sure there are studies to support that, but I'd jut like to read one. At some point "amending" could become replacing the existing soil entirely and if the soil is replaced in an area larger than what the plant will ultimately colonize with roots, then certainly that could be a better environment in some circumstances. I do agree that just adding some gravel or peat to the soil you just excavated and backfilling would probably do more harm than good, especially if you only excavate twice the size of the existing root mass. But what if I excavate an area 20 times that size, and instead of amending the soil I replace it with whatever soil is ideal for that particular plant? Did they try that in the study? I hope not because I planted a japanese maple in my front yard today and heavily amending the existing soil, actually my hypothetical was more accurate, I dug a gigantic hole and amending with composted pine bark and peat. I also planted several inches above the existing grade on a mound so hopefully that will mitigate drainage problems.