M~ I live in Greenville not far from Carol. I have a few you have. Now, I do NOT water my roses nearly as much as some of the folks here, maybe that would make a difference, but probaby not since age seems to be key. Duchesse de Brabant: Mine is at least 7-9 years old and max size is 5 x 5 (if that) I have never had to prune her other than dead wood. She is amazing...what is more amazing is that someone on this post reported her to be a monster....Mine came from Rosesunlimited so maybe I have a smaller version? If mine were 8x8 I couldnt use the driveway!! She is in full sun and blooms alllll summer for me so I know she is happy. Fellemberg: Mine is at least 6 years old and still 4x4. Not in the best soil, I suppose others may say he gets much bigger. I think I have seen him trained on a pillar which ended up being a 7' tall x about 4' specimin. Mine is just left to bush form and is pretty that way. Mostly only rain water for him. Blush Noisette (keep in mind that Charleston is the life blood for a Noisette so YMMV!!) Mine is again, not in the best soil, only gets rainwater (except in drought) and mine is probably 6' tall by 8' wide. I do trim this Noisette back each spring because I find she blooms more if I do (everyone likes a good haircut, right?). This rose did not have much fragrance the first 3 years, in year 4 she began perfuming the yard every day....even from 15' away. I would never be without this rose. Mrs. Dudley Cross: Mine is in soil that is ammended but the clay around it is dreadful. She has stayed compact at 5 years old around 4x4. Last year she put on stellar growth so this year she may take off...we will see. I expect this rose to get much bigger. She is teaching me patience. Cl. Pinkie: Mine grows against a fence. I never touch her. I let her weep over on top of old canes which eventually die but never disease. She is a biggun' at 9' x 12' and maybe a bit more. LOVE this rose. My sons go under her weeping (nearly thornless) branches and have a forte underneath. Its just like a tent to them and since I dont spray...I let them enjoy their hideout. :o) I have been working on a graduate degree for the last....well FOREVER...but that ends this spring!! I am glad to have the time to be back in the garden and with my roses. You can contact me anytime if you have a question about SC roses. I know we get colder than you but I may be able to at least talk about roses with some age on them and BS. I don't spray my garden with chemicals so I can give you an idea of what will survive without chemical intervention (at least Upstate style) Ronda

Have you ever read any of the "Guerrilla Marketing" books? I don't know how large your operation is, but there are lots of good ideas for promoting any size business without spending a lot. Some other ideas we've tried: * A brochure that tells about us, to hand out at garden shows, farmer's markets, etc. * Develop a mailing list, and send a quarterly newsletter. We're sure to include local garden clubs, media people, and anyone else who might be interested. * CLASSES. We have been trying to position ourselves as a "go-to" place for great plants, information and, just as importantly, ENTERTAINMENT. * Offering to speak for free at garden clubs, the library, Master Gardeners, etc. * If you have space, offer to host garden club meetings. Or, start your own garden club with price breaks on plants for members on meeting days. * Coupons. Give someone a coupon for a free $2.50 plant, and they'll usually come in and spend another $25.00 or so. * Senior citizens discounts once a month. * Press releases to the (free) community bulletin boards with the local newspapers, TV, radio, everywhere we can think of, to tell them anything we're doing. * Events. Big or small, they invite people to come and have fun at your place. We started six years ago with a holiday open house with a crockpot of cider and a couple of plates of cookies to promote our fresh Christmas wreaths and our new (tiny) gift shop. Now our biggest event brings in hundreds of people and lots of sales. * Networking with local arboretum, parks, zoo, etc. etc., on mutually beneficial events or classes. * Press releases to the (free) community bulletin boards with the local newspapers, TV, radio, everywhere we can think of. We've been in business since the '60's, but most of the above has come about in the last 5 years. We have a small but dedicated staff (and several customer volunteers helping on the big event). But probably the biggest thing we've done to get things rolling was to sit down and come up with a Mission Statement and a set of goals. It's funny - whenever we start "stirring the air", it seems that things start picking up in odd, coincidental ways. I love our place. I loved it for years while I was a customer, and I love it even more now that I'm priveleged to work there. It takes an enormous amount of dreaming and planning to keep coming up with fresh ideas, and not everything works. On the whole, though, the results have been very gratifying. I'm not saying that we haven't been having rough years or that our gas bills aren't back-breaking, but getting our customers enthused also helps keep staff and management attitudes positive. That's CRUCIAL. I've always believed that customer service requires a degree of acting ability - keep a smile on your public face (and in your public voice), no matter what. Great plants at a low price are only part of the package - I feel that customers are looking for a positive experience, as well. This is way too long, I know - but I passionately believe in local garden centers. I hope that you'll find a way past the negative, because your community needs you. They just don't know it yet, and you need to find a way to tell them! Hope this helps even a little... and that Spring helps a lot. Julie

We have had good experiences with the crews for the kitchen reno and the kitchen floor plus family room reno. In both cases they were tidy workers who cleaned up including sweeping at the end of each day. They ate lunch out or at the patio table and cleaned up afterward. We never had to clean up after them. When we mentioned to the GC of the family room job that our grandkids were going to be up for the weekend, he had his guys do an extra through clean-up including double checking around the patio in case any nails went astray. Both GCs told us what to expect for work times for the next day or two and generally the workers arrived on time. Of course there was the rare exception here and there like the time that the flooring guy coming to fix a scrape in the floor misunderstood and went to the wrong job (where he had a frustrating time trying to find what he was suppose to fix). Nobody ever harmed any of our landscaping. Perhaps it helps that there was a good size concrete patio to do any work at the family room door. The GC for the main kitchen remodel set expectations for his crew's behavior and they met them. I assumed that they would use the powder room, but he insisted on bringing in a porta potty. He also asked us to take the pictures down from the non-kitchen side of kitchen walls. The very few times that they had to be out of the kitchen family room to do something, they asked first. Other than that, they were only in there and on the patio outside the kitchen. For any messy work, the doors to that area were covered with plastic and taped - very little dust ever made it through that so the rest of the house stayed clean. I don't know what music they played - I was at work. I was working from home when we did the family room remodel and my office is on the other side of the wall, though there are closets on that side which deaden the noise a bit. If they played music or listened to the radio, they kept it quiet enough to not be heard in my office. The only noise that I heard was essential remodeling noise - especially the demo of the very thick "mud" left from a prior tile floor. Security precautions: I wouldn't leave pocket size expensive items lying around. My mother taught me that it was wrong to tempt workers by leaving such stuff out. But we didn't hide things like TVs and computers. Of course we kept them well away from the dangers of the work zone. For the kitchen remodel, we double keyed the patio door and gave the GC the key that opened only that door. Once the project was finished, we re-keyed it to use only our house key. That way, we didn't have to worry about someone making and keeping a copy of the key to use after the job was over. Between our planning - e.g. setting up a temporary kitchen and freezing some made ahead meals for the kitchen remodel and rearranging the living room for the entertainment equipment during the family room work - and their consideration, we were pretty comfortable during the remodels.

I did like The Holiday. I watched it again yesterday while DH napped. He'll watch chick flicks, but he makes stupid comments all thru them so I'd just as soon watch them by myself. Good idea to bring along a few extra things in case people want them which I'm sure they will. They are right, you are an excellent painter. You are your own worst critic. :) When are you leaving? We changed our plans up a little and will be leaving on Thursday for our long weekend getaway. The kids are pretty excited for the swimming mostly. I got a cow painted!, but need to cut off one little part that I don't like with the saw. Then I can sand it, touch it up and seal it. I combined one of your patterns with a sheep that Sal had done on crafts that I liked. I like the way it turned out. Have two little garden angels I need to finish up. Had some rusty metal hearts I was going to use for the wings on one and now I don't know what I did with them. Have to look thru my stash to see if I can find those and finish her up today. Have a big long shelf I need to give another coat of paint and seal so I can put it up on my newly painted wall and get the pictures and things hung back up. Have a shelf and a knob hanger I need to put a coat of sealer on so I can put those up in the girls room. DD may want something painted on the one, but she hasn't decided what yet. Those are my finish up projects. My starter projects are to paint a small gun rack to hold my g-grandpas canes instead of guns, paint a picture frame so I can hang up an oil painting that DH did when he was in high school of a swamp scene and another shelf to paint for my bedroom, but those are just black. As DH says I've been on a black kick for the past year or so. ha Found a graphic online that I want to try to duplicate on some burner covers for my stove. Don't know if it was in any of the TS find pics, but I found another little block wagon that I need to find a pattern for, but that's a Christmas project. I guess it's about time to start planning some fall projects too. I have quite a few things stashed. Turkeys, scarecrows, pilgrims, and various small leaves and pies for hangers I've been saving up to paint. Need to start a little earlier this year so it doesn't sneak up on me like usual and I end up not adding to that seasons decorations. Since I got the silicone and it worked so well I've been trying to find some pieces for my own little totem. Yea, I'm the last one on the wagon. ha Our bouncy horse finally bit the dust and I convinced DH to save the horse for me to put on a pole. Don't know if I want to paint it pretty colors or just spray it with the stone spraypaint. I'm kind of leaning toward the stone look. Waiting for him to have time to drill the holes in it and affix it to a pole. Sorry for the long litany of projects, but I was kind of typing out loud. ha Are you thinking ahead yet to any future projects?