Some of the best photos yet,Stephania. Your spiny plant collection is so perfect and interesting,and I'm sure we all look forward to your frequent posts. We once visited Wally Berg's home in Florida in the 1990's,and his bromeliad display was like being in a tropical paradise,and he had a family of small Partridge birds living among his plants.They had recently hatched a bunch of little ones,and they were following their parents around as best they could,running everywhere. It was quite the sight to see as they tried to keep up with their fast moving Mom. Your garden must be a very entertaining place too. Thanks for the smiles! Bob

You're right...I don't know why they made it so wide & tall. Even though your refrigerator is a standard depth, it's almost 36" wide, which is becoming the "standard" width...so there's probably no need to plan for wider. The top I can see since the new "standard" is close to 72" high, so that may be planned for the future. I actually have 4" of so of empty space above my refrigerator but I also have filler to cover up the gap. My refrigerator is about the same height as yours, so I needed room to expand later...but probably not 4" worth! I think RHome410 has a great idea of putting a slab drawer front piece across the top filler to make it look "planned" and more "finished". Unfortunately for me, my door style wouldn't work b/c it needs almost 7" to fit the frame + a center...and I think you're in the same boat since your style is similar to mine. I wonder if the real reason has more to do with measurements in general on that wall. Maybe it was made bigger to take up a couple more inches of room so there would be less filler elsewhere. If there wasn't at least 3" that could be tacked on one of the middle cabinets (or 6" to balance two cabinets...3" for each), then maybe the thought was that rather than have two inches of additional blank wall on one side or even an inch on each side, it would look better to have those 2" in the refrigerator alcove. Have you asked them why there's so much extra width?

Sorry for the confusion.. I interpreted the first response to be about the general health of the tree being OK in such temperatures, which I know, not just the blooms, which is my concern. I meant to say that it will leaf out fine even after freezing / frost but I do lose the flowers. It is only beginning to flower right now, not leaf out. I had researched the forest pansy prior to getting it and did see that Z5 it was questionable. However, I really wanted the color for this particular landscape. A few years ago my area was upgraded to Z6, and the location is in an inside corner patio area which is pretty well protected. It has done good for me so far. With this past brutal winter, I was concerned, especially since we did hit those record -22+ below zero temps, but it is beginning to flower and looks like it made it through just fine.

I just don't like the photo thing and never have, so I don't put my photo on my card. I think it's just weird. And when the photo is 20 years old and looks nothing like you, then it's just vain. Or laziness. Or cheap (those photo sessions aren't free). Unfortunately, they make me put one on my SavvyCard....what do you think? c9pilot's SavvyCard (that picture was taken in front of a Velocity aircraft, but they carve it out somehow - just got back from a test flight and now we are building one)