While not impossible, it is often rather difficult to prune a rose to death with one bad pruning. Most likely, your plants will survive and with TIME, never show any affects of your pruning efforts. As for replacing them, that is totally up to you. TIME is the operative word. If they are front and center to the design you have and their appearance offends you, replace them. I know how difficult it is for some people to overlook such things, and as it IS your gardena and your money, spend it if it makes you happier. If you can overlook these roses long enough, the greatest chances are they will recover and be fine. "Long enough" is up to you. If you do replace them, move the originals somewhere else in the garden and enjoy. Kim

I wasn't familiar with Trumpeter--looked it up at helpmefind.com (do you know that wonderful resource?)--Trumpeter is beautiful! Looks like it is disease-resistant also. Great choice! Looks to me like Trumpeter will make the strongest statement of the three, so I would put it in the middle--with the two more golden bushes on either side of it. Gives some balance and symmetry--while maintaining variety. So, yes, I would put Julia by the door and the taller rose Rio on the left side. Hope you wanted a strong ("loud"????) statement there, cuz that is what you will have. Personally, I think it is a great combination, unless you are one of those who dotes on pastels. Pastel, it is not! Kate

I bought the Mr. Heater brand. It was the only one for NG I could find locally. It came with a fan but uses a battery for the ignitor. It's a 30k btu but only has 4 plaques. The Glo Warm had 5.

Prices in some areas are at or near what they were pre-bubble. I believe that general rules of thumb that were in place before housing rabies took hold of this country are still good measures. One, if you stay in the house at least 5-7 yrs it may make more sense to buy, depending on the local market. If you're moving around a lot, rent. Not only could we still be in a falling market, but moving and selling before that rarely makes sense. I believe most areas still have a ways to come down in price, the exception possibly being areas that never saw the wild price inflation. But even those areas could lose value, they just have less distance to go to make up for it when housing "recovers." I would not buy in an inflated area. Most of those prices are still WAY out of whack w/reality and w/incomes. They may come down slowly and painfully, or it may be fast, but they have to come down because people are unable to afford them and many (responsible) lenders have tightened up standards. Any lenders who'd still approve a loan for too much house is probably clearly a crook, and to be avoided. Second: Old rule of thumb on how much house you could afford was, never finance anything more than two or three times your annual income, and only about a quarter (to a third at most) of your income per month for a mortgage pmt or rent. Many variables including your down payment, debt you still owe other creditors, years til retirement, etc. But never let anyone tell you that buying some overpriced house that requires a toxic loan to get into, is ok just because someone will lend it to you. And never let anyone tell you housing only goes up. That was the industry's justification for telling buyers that a house is an investment instead of just a place to live. You have to live in a house a long time and sell in a favorable market for it to have been an investment and even then many people 'forget' all the money they paid out as a homeowner that they won't get back like maintenance, HOA dues, and so on.