I don't get it, Chaz... I'm blonde and slow! Duh... explain it slowly, please. Skip-Bo sounds like fun, and Uno has always been a blast! The ex and I played with another couple in the complex when we lived West Chicago. Uno nights always included plenty of booze! What a riot! As kids, my Dad taught us to play War, Poker and BlackJack... and they played Pinochle, and a card game called Donkey with their adult friends. Bozo the Clown... and Ringmaster Ned, and the original Cookie the Clown! Watched it every day! Even went there once and was part of the audience! Egads, I'm old!

Hi lovetogrowflowers. I don't think you are bothering anyone. Lucy is right, try not to stress yourself out. Take deep breaths. LOL. I think your plan for the two potted ones are perfect. I read in one of your earlier post asking about if the crawl space was ok and someone I believe said yes. For me, I WOULD strip the leaves first. The brug will be trying to take care of the leaves instead of useing its energy to go dormant. Plus you wouldn't want bugs to sneak in on a leaf and spend the winter eating your brug. :( As for the one in ground...well people cut back or don't cut back for different reasons. One of the biggest I think is for safety and the health of the plant. During the winter the brug branches will freeze so they cut them back so there is less of a chance this will happen. Who wants a mushy rotting brug in spring? How tall is the brug you still have in the ground? How close to the ground is the Y? The experts can chime in if this is a bad idea, but how about if you...1.Stip the leaves. 2.Cut off only the top green tips. (Save them) 3.Mulch as high as you can get it, at least to the Y if it's close to the ground. 4.Cover the brug with a REALY big rubber trash can or tub. 5.Maybe even cover that with an old blanket. Or would that be over kill? The cuttings you could take in and root them. Hopefully none of that was bad advice. Me and Lonny are newbies too. This will be our 2nt winter. We killed one of the two brugs we had last winter. But that was because we brought them in and tried to keep them growing. This year we brought all in again. This winter we have many more, plus young ones. We made a Brug room and have been learning lots. So we are going to give it a try. If they had been bigger, we would have left them out in ground to go dormant. Now that I have writen a novel.(sorry, long winded) Try not to worry, you brought them back to health and they are doing well enough to be around to overwinter, so I think you are doing well. Kim

The one thing to check, I think, is if the GC was trying to warn you off. Does he really want to work over the holidays? Do his subs? Are they taking their kids on vacation just when you thought they'd be working? The GC might want the job too much to tell you no-can-do, and figure he can probably make it work out, rather than being eager for your start date. If you're sure he and the subs are on board, go for it! And maybe add an incentive bonus for them to be done, cleaned up and signed off by January 25 (sooner if that's the quote), which gives you a week to get your act together before your party. Plus a penalty if it's not done by February 1. It can be done if everyone's on board. I only worry that less than 2 months over the holidays is awfully tight, if you really want them done in time for the party.

CoriAnn, this is a brilliant idea!!! I'm looking forward to seeing some pictures of Florence D.; on HMF, the photos show a colour that is very washed-out and muddy in comparison to the ones posted here. I myself have become very,very focused onto lavender,violet, purple, mauve roses,after realizing last year that these were the colours that pleased me the most,so I'm on the alert for good ones in this category. I'm even thinking of changing my present policy and actually trying an HT or two!