OMG, Christopher! Look at all those red HT roses!! Wonderful pics. Thank you. I love your red roses with purple clematis. (My two favorite colors.) I have yet to acquire Chateau de Clos Vougeot but REALLY want to get one from RVR after I make room in my driveway pot garden, and I would love to grow another Guinee and Don Juan someday. Obviously, I completely grok your dark red rose mania. I currently have Mr. Lincoln, Black Magic, Black Bacarra, Deep Secret, Velvet Fragrance, Nigrette, Barcelona, Black Gold, Dusky Maiden, and Red Pinocchio. A couple of these are total pains, but I pamper them anyway. Lucky little buggers! Carol

Mika: A lot of people have positive outcome with Millet's formula. I've altered Millet' formula like the above.I believe that the above formula will be better and I'm transplanting my citrus and my bananas with the above mixture. But I added steer manure and perlite and redwood also. Be sure that you follow Millet's preparation on his CHC. Like soak it 3 times, on the final rinse add 1 cup of epsom salt and 1/4 cup calcium nitrate to get rid of the salts on CHC for 24 hours. Then on the soil mix add 1 cup + 3 tbspn of long lasting 19-6-12 osmocote, 1/4 cup soluble fert and 1/4 cup STEM and 7/8 cups of dolomite for every cubic feet of mix. It is my understanding that any peat moss that you bought from the store is OK.

I just bought the 30" freestanding Bertazzoni. I really do like it. I think the grade of stainless steel for the cooktop makes it easy to clean and I believe some of the forumites here are unhappy because of the poorer grades - that's my opinion. I live near the ocean and my Frigidaire that had a black porcelain top rusted. I haven't read about any of the appliances being 'lemon free' so I bought a 5 year warranty. The simmer burner does not go low enough but the power burner is more than enough for me and I often need to scoot the pan to another lower output burner. Meanwhile, I haven't been able to get used to the oven. The thermometer I purchased says the temperature is correct.

hi again. rosie... this is neither a want or a need; i would only get it IF it would improve how the kitchen functions. there are no frills in my kitchen. :) davidro1... re: glass filler... do you already have filtered water or are you in an area with good tap water? i don't know if this makes me odd, but i filter water through the brita pitcher before using it to boil pasta, even. dh wasn't sold on the glass filler idea. he thinks the pot filler would be more useful for us, but even then i had to assure him that we'd purchase a two-valve commercial one that would be reliable! thanks, painterly... we will open the walls the first week of May, so about two weeks. i will definitely post an update. no surprises, i hope. :) i should add that dh and i are like a lumbering bear and the tasmanian devil in the kitchen. he drives me nuts when he's in the way! (but i don't say anything.) one thing i have to think on is how often in a day is he in the way when i want to say, fill the brita pitcher? does even once a day justify the liabilities of a pot filler?