Every April I visit the largest privately owned nursery in my area to check the wide selection of roses that arrive there each year. Most years, I leave with several new varieties. Yesterday I made my first visit there this season. Immediately, I noticed that the section of the nursery devoted to roses was larger than usual. As I walked the rows, I could hardly grasp the reality of what I was seeing -- there was every available variety/color of Knock Out and NOTHING else. Looking across nursery, I spotted two other (much smaller) sections of roses. Rushing over to those, I found that one contained Meilland's Drift series in three colors; the other (labeled "climbers") contained nothing but 'Joseph's Coat'. I suspect that a climbing KO (in various colors, no doubt) is in development at this moment. When that is released, will the transition to nothing but KOs at last be complete? In a brief chat with one of the owners as I was leaving, she stated that "everyone wants KOs", and that the HTs & Floribundas received in recent years had so deteriorated in quality that the plants no longer met the nursery's standards. One can't fault business people for tending to business -- particularly a business that's teetering on the edge these days.

sink

Livebetter - I am sure you will be thrilled w/your new Miele's at least I hope so. So far I am thrilled w/my Bosch set. If I could have stacked the Miele's, I probably would have gone that route, however, I could not manage the price plus redoing a just done laundry to make them fit. It's interesting between the different appliance people and what they think of Samsung. My guy wants to dump them as soon as the contract is up do to the many, many repair calls. Yours recommended them. I find that interesting. Also, the delivery personal we had did an excellent job. One of them also owns the Bosch Vision series and he loves his as well. So that's 2 people from the same store both raving about what I just bought. I'm not overly concerned that Bosch is getting out of the 27" laundry set. Did concern me for a minute, however, my 7 yo dishwasher model I don't think is produced anymore, but they continue to use basically the same parts and well, it just hasn't needed serviced. I'm hoping I find the same for my washer. I love having the bigger drum. I believe mine is 4.3, coming from my approx 1.6 euro style Danby, it's like a cavern. I have yet to over fill it, but it's cut my laundry time in approx 1/2. I hope to see my water bill go down as well. I can't tell you the difference in how much each is using. Bosch claims 13 gals for an entire load, not sure what the Danby used, it doesn't say in the book, but if I've got to run 3 loads in there compared to 1 in the Bosch, I have to be saving something. All that said, I think you will find the 4.0 to be a good size. I have not tried my Q comforter yet, so I will let you know when I do. As for the steam in the dryer. I can't see myself using it very much. As I said, most items come up virtually wrinkle free to start with. We don't wear many dress shirts here, so I won't need it for that either. I will do some sweaters, but the heat it uses worries me for some things. I guess what I will have to do, is let a load dry, let it sit so it will wrinkle and then try the steam function to see if I can get it back to just been dried. So I would not worry about not having it.

I haven't seen anything about it. But since I don't work on Fridays, I wouldn't have had the early news and then Today on and the tv is hardly on most weekends. I haven't seen the first daughters in some time, they are lovely. Michelle's hair looks great! Nice pictures Robo - thanks for sharing.