Hi Lori, Welcome to the forum. Most heirlooms grow just fine here. Since Randy's search undoubtedly pulled up hundreds of 'heirloom tomato' threads, I'll list some other types of heirloom vegetables that perform well here. I'll throw in a few tomatoes, but not many since there's oodles of them on the threads Randy's search pulled up: BEANS: Cherokee Trail of Tears, Tendergreen, Rattlesnake, Lazy Housewife, McCaslan, Old Homestead (aka Kentucky Wonder), Louisiana Purple Pod, Royalty Purple Pod, Dixie Speckled Butterpea Lima, Henderson's Bush Lima, Christmas Lima BEETS: Chioggia, Bull's Blood, Burpee's Golden Wonder, Detroit Dark Red, Cylindra BROCCOLI: Waltham 29, Calabrese, Early Purple Sprouting, Romanesco BRUSSELS SPROUTS: Long Island Improved CABBAGE: Early Jersey Wakefield, Late Flat Dutch, Mammoth Red Rock CANTALOUPE/MUSKMELONS: Hale's Best Jumbo, Pike, Canoe Creek Colossal, Collective Farm Woman, Schoon's Hard Shell, Jenny Lind, Eden's Gem, Petit Gris de Rennes, Charentais, Prescott Fond Blanc, Delice de la Table CARROTS: Tonda di Parigi, Tom Thumb, Danvers 126 Half-Long, Chantenay Red Core, Little Fingers CAULIFLOWER: Snowball, Purple of Sicily COLLARDS: Georgia Southern CUCUMBERS: National Pickling, Lemon Cucumber, Mexican Sour Gherkin, Boston Pickling EGGPLANT: Black Beauty, Ping Tung Long, Rosa Bianca, Casper LETTUCE: Oakleaf, Deertongue, Parris Island Cos, Little Gem, Henderson's Black-Seeded Simpson, Rouge d'Hiver, Lollo Rosa, Tom Thumb MUSTARD GREENS: Southern Curled, Red Giant OKRA: Hill Country Red, Cowhorn, Burgundy, Longhorn, Clemson Spineless, Emerald ONIONS: any short-daylength or intermediate-daylength types grow just fine here. Some heirlooms: Early Texas Grano, Red Torpedo, Spanish Sweet Yellow, PEAS: Wando, Little Marvel PEPPERS, HOT: Fish Pepper, Hungarian Hot Wax, Tabasco, Long Purple Cayenne, PEPPERS, SWEET: Golden Marconi, Jimmy Nardello's Italian, California Wonder, Red Marconi, Red Mini Bell, Chocolate Bell POTATOES, IRISH: All-Blue, Adirondack Blue, German Butterball, French Fingerling RADISHES: Early Scarlet Globe, Cherry Belle, Hailstone, French Breakfast, Purple Plum, Rat's Tail, Pink Beauty SOUTHERN PEAS (Crowder, Zipper, Cream, Blackeye, Pinkeye Purplehull types): Pinkeye Purple Hull, Whipporwill, Penny Rile, SPINACH: Bloomsdale Longstanding, Giant Noble, America. (Hot-weather spinach substitutes are New Zealand Spinach and Red Malabar Spinach, but neither one are true spinaches.) SQUASH, SUMMER: Early Prolific Straightneck, Cocozelle di Napoli, Costata Romanesco, Early Summer Yellow Crookneck, Bennings Green Scallop SQUASH, WINTER/PUMPKINS: Seminole, Amish Pie Pumpkin, Long Island Cheese, Lakota, Turk's Turban, Connecticut Field Pumpkin, Galeux d'Eysines, Rouge Vif d'Etamps, Tennessee Sweet Potato, Sweet Meat, Table Queen, Sucrine du Berry, Musquee de Provence, Delicata, New England Sugar Pie SWEET CORN: Country Gentleman (aka Shoepeg), Texas Honey June, Black Aztec, Golden Bantam, Bloody Butcher SWEET POTATOES: Vardaman, Porto Rico, SWISS CHARD: Five-color Silverbeet, Fordhook Giant TOMATOES: Riesentraube, Neve's Azorean Red, Indian Stripe, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, Ildi, Nebraska Wedding, Aunt Ruby's German Green, Dr. Wyche's Yellow, Estler's Mortgage Lifter, Royal Hillbilly, Mountain Princess, Bradley Pink, Sioux, Rutgers, Principe Borghese TURNIPS: Purple Top White Globe, Gold Ball WATERMELONS: Blacktail Mountain, Orange Flesh Tendersweet, Rattlesnake, Black Diamond Yellow Belly, Moon and Stars Those are my best-performing heirlooms. I'm sure other folks will list their faves too. Dawn

Below is a link to the Suggestion at the Suggestion Forum. Maybe bow that the worst of the updating problems are over, they can address a few of the 'wants' with a lot of replies there. Here is a link that might be useful: Link to Rate and Review Forum

I ended up using google, typing gardenweb roses ...

Leslie, here's what I'd do (and have done in some cases): go online and price out all the items you're going to order, or at least all the big ones. If you qualify for free shipping, make sure you have that showing (e.g. print out your shopping cart showing $0.00 shipping if it isn't otherwise prominently displayed somewhere). Then go into your local store and tell the guy you want to get a final price quote so you can make the decision to finalize your order. Tell him he mentioned discounts, but you want to see how much it all comes out to. And mention that you were looking online to try to get an idea of what the prices would be, but you're hoping his price will be in the same neighborhood so you can order from him. And then see what he does. He may say, "let me see what pricing you found," sit at his computer and compare that to his pricing, and tell you he can match the pricing. Or he may immediately backpedal and tell you he can't match online prices because he has the overhead of a brick-and-mortar operation, or that you aren't getting the same quality items ordering online, or some other excuses. When I shopped a local dealer, he did the former -- took the pages I had in my folder (I made it clear I had researched the pricing, but didn't wave the sheets in his face) and matched the online pricing within a few bucks in every case. Now, in my case, buying locally means that I have to pay 6% sales tax, which I'm not charged if I buy online. (Technically, we should be voluntarily declaring our tax-free purchases and paying the state a 6% use tax, but no one does this.) I decided that I'd be willing to pay that difference in order to support the local business. I'd have been somewhat lost without his knowledge -- brands I didn't know about, pieces I didn't know about -- and seeing a wide range of products in his showroom, and so I tried to rationalize that it's worth a little more in sales taxes to support the local merchant. That all being said, when I did place the order for our first bathroom through the local dealer, and it wasn't all completely smooth going. I found out that for some manufacturers, they only place orders once a week or when they hit a minimum dollar threshold, so we lost some days I wasn't anticipating. And then they didn't notify me that some items were backordered from the manufacturer. I couldn't check my order status online; I had to repeatedly call the dealer to ask someone to check. When I found out after a week or so that my tub was going to be delayed three more weeks, and had my contractor breathing down my neck because it was going to delay a lot of work, I ended up canceling that item with the local dealer because I found it online, in stock and available for same-day shipping, so I got it within a week. (Despite what some have posted here, I used eFaucets for that order and a few other items in the past six months, with absolutely no problems.) And I had to go back to the local dealer (more than 30 minutes away) to pick things up several times as items came in piecemeal over a period of several weeks. So when it came time to start ordering items for our second bathroom, I decided that with the knowledge I had gained during the first rounds of shopping and procurement, that it was going to be easier for me to order online, and that's what I did. I got all my Hansgrohe shower hardware from Ira Woods, an online site that isn't mentioned much on this forum but is often recommended in the Kitchen forum. Sink, faucet, toilet, light fixture, dimmers, doorknobs, etc. were all ordered online, from various online sites. One other thing I'd like to mention. You said you're starting in two weeks. You need to ask the local dealer and/or any online retailer what is in stock, and when you will receive each item. Many online sites say "in stock" but actually don't have real-time inventory data feeding their web site. Some just say "in stock" for everything, whether it ever is or not. Don't assume it'll be okay; get on the phone, or live chat support, and ask them to specifically check what's in stock and when you will get it. (I did this just yesterday with our final batch of bathroom accessories; I found two online sites which said "in stock" for the five items I was ordering, but actually didn't have all the items in stock, and I ended up splitting the order between two different sites.) If you're inclined to buy from the local dealer, ask him to check with his warehouse/distributors/manufacturers to be able to give you actual shipping dates rather than generalized estimate (e.g "usually ships within one week"). In my experiences just having done two bathrooms, you'll be lucky to get all your materials within two weeks -- but it depends a great deal on the manufacturers and product lines you're buying, as I'm sure some more popular items are readily in stock at warehouses. Also, for your own sanity and stress reduction, be sure to find out from your contractor exactly what he needs when. He may tell you, for example, that the shower trim/diverter and showerhead won't be needed for a month, but the thermostatic valve is needed when he begins work in two weeks. Or that the toilet isn't needed until near the end of the job, but the tub is needed at the beginning. So a delay in shipping some products may not be any problem at all, but your contractor can tell you. Depending what you're doing in your bathroom, there may be some things you need early in the process which you aren't aware of without asking. (For example, I was caught unprepared when my contractor told me he needed the shower drain near the beginning of the shower construction; now that I've seen how a shower is built, I understand why, but it just wasn't on my radar until my contractor gave me a heads up. It turned out that the drain we chose consists of a frame and the actual metal drain which sits inside the frame; the frame was available immediately, and that's what the contractor needed immediately to build the shower bed and tile, while the metal drain had a four week lead time, which worked out fine because it wasn't needed until after the tile was done.) And yes, this can all become rather overwhelming, especially while working full-time! I'm just finishing nearly six months of work on the gust bath, an addition, and a master bath, and I can't wait to be able to devote my full attention back to my "day job". ;) -- Eric