Thanks for the warning about Brother Cadfael. Now I'm agonizing on where to put the roes and whether or not to displace my two Pinkie's that I put next to the pillars in the front bc of their reputation for thornlessness (hah!) and reliable, almost constant rebloom. Two things about Pinkie that I don't love for that coveted position next to the front entrance 1) No fragrance 2) Small blooms that aren't very full/cupped. I would love something more like Brother Cadfael, Eden, Heritage, etc in this area Nanadoll - how wide does BC get? I certainly have the height but prob have only about 3-4 feet for him in width Jeri - my BC plant is quite bushy, with a few blooms on side shoots and a good number of them at the tops of the shoots of varying lengths. I also tested the stiffness of the canes and they're not too stiff, I can still bend them pretty easy. I think easy enough for me to bend them sideways at least to help with flowering. Do you think although we're both in SoCal, since I'm down here in Venice and you're in the central coast it will behave differently?

I still feel like I'm behind, though. Probably mostly because I SERIOUSLY cut back on my container count this year. I might have 40-50 perennials out there, and another 24 maybe in other stuff. My usual count is somewhere between 200-400+ I want to do a sale, but iffy on whether or not to do it; people are finicky...I did "ok" last year, but ignorant people snubbed their noses at the small (but full) containers of seedlings (3.50 per jug with up to hundreds of seedlings in it). Ok, so what should I do then? Have my sale in July when everyone's nursery plants are starting to fail miserably? Should I charge 10x as much in July as I would have in May/June in the seedling stage and charge them 3.50 for ONE rud or ONE petunia? (rolleyes). I really don't WANT to babysit containers until July...it's bad enough that I might not get all of my OWN planted out by then, but to have to make SURE that containers don't die...well, mid-July I'm off on other ventures...and when they're MINE..."I'll get to it, or I won't" and either way works. My veggie patch is still under construction (I build borderless raised beds); my onions will be here any day now... I feel like having ordered my toms so late that even a week in April is a lot of wasted germination time. I have mosaic projects not started or finished that I've committed myself to (another forum)...I just feel like I'm not getting anything done and time's a wastin' Maybe I'm just usually "early" and have everything out by now and this "lateness" that I'm feeling really isn't at all.

I'm 2/3 set....well, sort of. I'm still working on the hand made item, but I found the cookbook yesterday. Like many of you, I had to get 2 of them, one for myself and one for my partner. I'm still puzzling over the local item. I've found a nice locally produce item, but I'm not sure about shipping it. I'm going to do some more research. I've thought of other things, but Texas is a big state, and I'm not sure if the other side of Texas counts as local. Unfortunately, where I live the primary locally produced products are McMansions. I know I can spend as much as I want, but I'm NOT spending THAT much! LOL. Besides, that would definately be hard to ship! Sally

msrose, the problems with my Bassett sofa were with the cushions and the fabric. My sofa had a semi-attached back, which was always lumpy and the seat cushions would flatten out and become lumpy in a very short period of time. I think Bassett replaced the seat cushions 3 or 4 times before they finally said no more. They did come out one time and add more fiber fill to the back cushions. They pretty much told me I would have to continue to do that on my own for the life of the sofa. As for the fabric, it did not wear well at all. On one arm, they had not extended the padding out to the end of the arm and the wood of the frame cut through the fabric. Also, the seams they used to join two pieces of fabric were so tiny that they ended up pulling apart. Bassett wouldn't cover any of the fabric problems and I ended up paying a furniture repair company over $100 to deal with the seam issue. My neighbor had similar issues with the cushions. I had heard bad things about La-z-boy (after I bought mine, of course), but so far mine are holding up pretty well. I do have to give the loose back cushions a "restorative massage" once a week or so to get them back in shape, but once I do that they aren't too bad. Totally Confused