Good quote, Laura. When "work" is self-actualizing people don't even think of it as "work." But when it is self-erasing, it's "Adam's curse."

Actually, if you learn one color system - the language of just one color system - it's not hard to figure out all the other ones. The one to learn is Munsell. Albert Munsell is my favorite old dead guy. We share the same birthday but that's not the only reason he's my favorite. Al was a teacher and his motivation for creating his system was color education for elementary school children. What that means is you don't even have to be smarter than a 5th grader to figure out how the Munsell Color System works. I recently wrote an article about the absurd state of retail paint stores and how manufacturers market color. In the article I ask readers to imagine walking into a department store to buy an outfit: shirt, jeans and shoes. Everybody can relate to that, right? Now imagine that there are no tags on anything. No labels sewn into the collar of the shirts or seams of the jeans. No sizes imprinted on the bottom of the shoes. No clues whatsoever about sizes or prices. The only way you're going to be able to find a complete outfit it to start trying stuff on. You have to start by searching out a shirt that "looks like" it might fit. Try it on and when it doesn't fit, your only option is to keep trying on shirts; comparing each one to the one before that didn't fit. Then you have to do the same to find a pair of jeans. Then you have to do the same to find a pair of shoes. How long do you think it would take you to find an outfit that fits? How long do you think it would be before you got totally frustrated, confused, and exhausted by the process. How long before you said "this is crazy, I'm outta here!"? No one in their right mind would shop at that store. They'd find a department store where all the items had labels and price tags. Substitute color notations for labels and this is exactly the situation in paint store world right now. Some stores have paint brands that have notations. And some do not. Sounds half hopeful, right? Not so fast. Sadly, the people who own/work in the paint stores that do have brands with notations have not one fat clue their brand has a color system loaded behind it - let alone what to do with the actual notation. So, unfortunately, @williamsem nailed it. Most people are left with aimlessly combing through chips and sticking with the company with the chip you like. Bonne chance my colorful friends. P.S. Thanks @linelle for the kind words.

Aw, mobuddy, thank you! I feel pretty happy these days, my life has never been better. I've got my share of neurotic anxiety, but far less of the latter than in years past. I do love my little house, I always have, and now it's sooooo much better than it ever was before! blfenton - good idea. Thank you. I just put a gray and a brown Sharpie on my Amazon wish list. They were really small scratches, but still. When my counter arrived, I noticed a very small scratch/chip near the sink. The install guy used a Sharpie on it, and the flaw pretty much disappeared. Let me know if you have Living Room advice over on Home Decorating.

Regarding Turface fines, do I understand correctly that they would be helpful for in-ground trees in flat or otherwise insufficiently drained areas? I do have some trees like that and would love to put the Turface fines to good use. It depends on what the soil is like and whether or not they are used in a raised bed. If you have an area with heavy clay and you incorporate them into the soil, they might actually increase the amount of water that collects in the soil surrounding your plants' roots. This is known as the "bathtub effect". Amending a garden where the soil is clay just causes the garden area to hold more water unless the garden is on a slope or there are tiles or a ditch to direct water away from the area. THEN, it can be very helpful. Whenever there is an area where percolation of water through the soil is slow, amending it in the hope of creating more air space results in an additional measure of water filling the newly created pores until the water naturally percolates through the soil. In the case where they are used in a raised bed (RB), water will move horizontally away from the RB across the top of the clay soil, where it will evaporate much faster than water below the surface of soils not exposed to air movement. When water evaporates from the surface of the surrounding soil, it 'pulls' additional water from RBs via capillary action. That's why clay soils below RBs should not be amended with organic material or sand as it creates thew bathtub effect and holds more water in the amended areas unless there is a plan in place to direct subsurface water away from the area. I couldn’t seem to locate uncomposted pine or fir bark fines ........ Will exceeding 3/8” on the bark fines be a big problem for the gritty mix? April through Memorial Day is the easiest time of year to find good bark products for making media. I suggest that you should until you find the right ingredients to make either the 5:1:1 mix or the gritty mix; this, because if you 'try to make something work', there is a good chance you'll end up unimpressed and give up. If you get it right the first time, it will be a game changer. Too, once you find a supplier, keep looking for other suppliers. I've found I can always find it somewhere near me, but operations go out of business or might decide to stop carrying a product some of us find very useful. What I'm saying is, it's better to have more than one basket to put your eggs in. I'm on my last bag of fir bark screened 1/8-1/4, so I'll be needing to screen bark again come next spring. Also, do you prefer/recommend gypsum or Foliage Pro 9-3-6 more for trees in pots? Your fertilizer will dictate what liming agent is appropriate. I always lime the 5:1:1 mix with dolomitic (garden lime) to bring the pH up to a more acceptable level. If I'm using the gritty mix + Foliage-Pro 9-3-6, there is no need to use a liming agent. If I'm using the gritty mix and a fertilizer without calcium or magnesium, I'll use gypsum (CaSO4) as a calcium source and Epsom salts (MgSO4) as a source of magnesium as neither compound has an appreciable effect on pH. Note: I haven't had to supplement Ca/Mg for a long time - since I started using Foliage-Pro 9-3-6. If someone asked me what hort product I would consider to be the most indispensable, it would be the FP 9-3-6. Al