Sunnibel, I had incorrectly assumed you were where 90% of the people in the state live, in the DC/Baltimore corridor. I am in Baltimore. If you like doing outdoor activities there is a lot to do in western Maryland and its worth a 2-hour drive if you make it a whole day. Re: varieties, if you are not putting in many trees then my main advice is to make sure you are growing varieties that are suited to the mid-Atlantic. I have discarded at least 50 apple varieties which were not working out in spite of their great descriptions. Once you have narrowed down the choices you can post your list here to get feedback. I recently started writing down my overall favorites, here is the current list: Freyburg Gold Rush Kidds Orange Red Wickson Crab (but, cracks every other year) Nonpareil Rubinette Bonne Hotture Abbondanza Chestnut Crab Golden Russet (American) Hawaii Swayzie Newtown Pippin Pomme Gris Reine des Reinettes Ashmead's Kernel Mother Rusty Coat White Winter Pearmain Golden Nugget Akane (but is highly bug-prone) Maigold Ribston Pippin Myers Royal Limbertwig Pink Lady I am a big fan of russets and big-tasting apples so my favorites are skewed in that direction. The Golden Russet and Ashmeads Kernel have not fruited in my orchard but I have heard enough good things from local growers on them. A few of these guys have only fruited a couple times for me, most I have several years experience with. Scott

evonne, now we're back to where we were before. And your link is very specific about papaver rhoeas, what I read in two different sources pertained to field poppies but assumed it would apply to mine as well, same as what you're saying. But stage found differently. Maybe sometimes they do self pollinate. I doubt we can resolve the discrepancy unless I just try it and see what happens. Not good to keep crossing them to the same genotype though which I would have to do to keep these going if it even succeeds. Today I went out, and two are blooming simultaneously. So it isn't clear if it applies to a single bloom or all blooms on the same plant. Do you think because of the two going now (and hopefully for the rest of the buds), they will swap pollen? No, I read it again, and it says same plant or another plant of the same genotype. My you've got your terminology down better than I do. I wonder what they do to select what I would call a sport but may not be the right term for poppies. At some point in the evolution of any plant with self-incompatibiity, it must have worked or we wouldn't have so many poppies that come true from seed. It appears many don't as they are sold as mixtures such as Angels Choir. In the above photo from WA state, they must cross pollinate, self sow, and produce uniform flowers the following year or they're perennials. This is all new to me, in the dim recesses of my memory, I knew that corn self pollinates, but the link covers that, too. Some plants don't have the inhibiting factor. Others do in certain families. Must be a reason for it going one way for some and the other way for other types, suppose the experts can only speculate about that. I'm guessing for our now infamous Cherry Brandy Rudbeckia, they must have gotten a new bloom and used seeds from that for multiple generations. Where it is now, it reverts to all sorts of things. I wonder how they do select out poppies then or if they can. What about that unique grape poppy? I think it might be a rhoeas, too, but am not sure.

Thank you everyone for the helpful responses! First of all, Liriodendron: thank you for letting me know this scary news. I checked my hotmail acct. and couldn't find an email from you but I just wrote you from an account I use much more frequently. Our thoughts and prayers are with your husband and you. Please write back as soon as you can. Nothing new on our end, thank you. I hope everything's okay. Francoise - that's a great link, thank you! I love this site - I just knew I'd great better responses than I probably would doing any extensive google search - haha. Skydog - thanks for the clay bar info as well! The product they used was this strong-smelling red putty which most paint stores sell. They claim it's a better fillers than other re. possible lead paint underneath and having to sand over (or maybe it's particularly re. wet-sanding by hand that it's better for, i'm not sure). At any rate, I can easily get that, and I do have extra spare marble I can test it on. Great idea! Clulessincolorado - oh, you're sweet. :) I do like the old fashioned push button look although I sometimes question whether a polished nickel might not have looked nicer than the ultra bright white. Black might look nice too. At first I thought an aged brass would clash too much with no other brass around in the room, but then I thought maybe the bronze look would do. Glad you liked the white though. It'll do for now - I've obviously got bigger fish to fry in that damned kitchen. Ha - fish to fry in the kitchen. That's not quite a pun, but almost! Lazygardens - well I seem to have the most WONDERFUL luck with contractors...at this point I just assume do the research myself and try to fix it myself cause I no longer trust the guys that caused the damage. As it was, they were back to fix mistakes that were pretty ridiculous. It's amazing, my luck w/ contractors! I wasn't messing around this time so found them from the state lead control website! I was sure anyone they said were certified would be good and they of course seemed good but alas... it wasn't meant to be. Anyway long story short, I don't want them touching the marble again. Fori - I agree and have my fingers crossed. The stain could, I suppose, be worse. Some marble's pink, right? ;) It's so annoying though, that this has happened. I'll be happier even if it only comes out a little more. Autumn-butterfly - thank you! :) I'll let you guys know what i end up figuring out/doing. For now I'm in high gear painting mode as I'm throwing a big baby shower on Saturday and am only painting the kitchen (with a friend's help) TONIGHT! Walls and ceiling tonight, cabinets and all trim tomorrow. VERY little time to dry! FYI (unrelated to the stain issue) - the cabinets and trim will be BM's Fieldstone gray - same color as the lowers for those of you who might remember (not keeping the uppers white - although I'll re-paint them white if I hate them in the gray-green color) and then the walls were a last-minute decision before the store closed (!) so are a hopefully safe BM Linen White. Wish me luck on this, too, please!

Below are the current hydrangea we are growing at home, many still small. So my direct hydrangea experience comes from this base. I have a few others on my wishlist still. I will pick up unlabeled plants if highly compelling, but try to avoid it. I have seen 'Mathlida Gutges' generically labeled or mislabeled as 'Nikko Blue' at Home Depo. Our List: Hydrangea angustipetala 'MonLongShou' 'Golden Crane' Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle' Hydrangea arborescens 'White Dome' Hydrangea aspera 'Macrophylla' Hydrangea aspera 'Plum Passion' Hydrangea aspera 'Sargentianum' Hydrangea aspera 'Villosum' Hydrangea macrophylla ?lavendar pink Hydrangea macrophylla ?peppermint Hydrangea macrophylla ?blue/pink Hydrangea macrophylla 'Amethyst' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Angel Lace' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Ayesha' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Bigleaf White' (Monrovia) Hydrangea macrophylla 'Blaumiese' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Bloomstruck' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Blue Danube' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Bottstein' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Burning Embers' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Let's Dance Diva' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Eisvogel' Hydrangea macrophylla '(Blue) Enchantress' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Endless Summer' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Enziandom' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Fasan' Hydrangea macrophylla 'First White' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Freedom' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Gallilee' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Hamburg' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Hobella' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Homigo' (Hovaria) Hydrangea macrophylla 'Horcos' 'Firefly' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Hot Red' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Jubilee' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Kardinal' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Kluis Superba' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Lady in Red' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Lanarth White' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Leuchtfurer' Hydrangea macrophylla mariesii 'Grandiflora' 'White Wave' Hydrangea macrophylla mariesii 'Perfecta' 'Blue Wave' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Masja' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Mathilda Gutges' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Merritt's Beauty' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Merritt's Supreme' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Merveille Sanguine' 'Brunette' 'Color Fantasy' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Multiblue' Hydrangea macrophylla 'New Wine' Hydrangea macrophylla nigra Hydrangea macrophylla 'Nikko Blue' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Parzival' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Peppermint Twist' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Pia' 'Pink Elf' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Pistachio' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Revolution' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Rotdrossel' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Selina' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Sister Therese' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Snowstorm' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Sumida no Hanabi' 'Shooting Stars' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Taube' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Tivoli' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Tokyo Delight' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Twist & Shout' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Wedding Gown' Hydrangea macrophylla 'White Robe' Hydrangea macrophylla 'You and Me Forever' Hydrangea macrophylla 'You and Me Romance' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Zaunkoening' Hydrangea macrophylla 'Zebra' Hydrangea paniculata 'Bobo' Hydrangea paniculata 'Fire & Ice' 'Wim's Red' Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight' Hydrangea paniculata 'Phantom' Hydrangea paniculata 'Pinky Winky' Hydrangea paniculata 'Strawberry Sundae' Hydrangea paniculata 'Vanilla Strawberry' Hydrangea quercifolia 'Alice' Hydrangea quercifolia 'Ruby Slippers' Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snow Queen' Hydrangea quercifolia 'Snowflake' Hydrangea serrata 'Beni Gaku' Hydrangea serrata 'Blue Billow' Hydrangea serrata 'Blue Bird'' Hydrangea serrata 'Blue Deckle' Hydrangea serrata 'Chiri-san Sue' Hydrangea serrata 'Golden Sunlight' Hydrangea serrata 'Preziosa' 'Lanarth White' 'Revolution' 'Hot Red nigra (acidic soil) black stems 'Let's Dance Diva' 'New Wine' 'Zaunkoening' 'Blue Wave' (past prime) (unknown blue/pink) w huge heads