Odyssey, Personally, I don't like the look of a big "haystack" of a rose. It will provide a huge habitat for rabbits and birds among other things, I'm sure. But, I can easily forsee the greenbriar and honeysuckle getting a hold deep inside the tangled mess, and it would be very difficult to get rid of it. Instead, I might create a new garden vignette for that area: a simple but effective one might be to set up a "corner" of split rail fencing that might run 20 ft in each direction. Place Awakening right in the corner and train her along the rails. Find a few roses that make beautiful large specimen type bushes and use them in the area inside the newly created corner. The Mrs. BR Cants will get huge...like an automobile. Some of the species roses make gorgeous small trees (Chestnut rose, r. glauca, and others). That's how I might use the space and Awakening. Robert

"How else would they know so much about all these different brands and manufacturers to speak so "expertly" on such a wide variety of them?" Oh that's easy. They're interested in garden and lawn tractors and tend to read up on everything they can on the subject, even though they don't own a particular brand and model. As Justalurker said, ral knowledge comed from actual ownership. There are a few on this forum who have owned most every brand in existence, but I think most of us are repeating what we have read from actual owners. I, for one, like to read up on the top-of-the-line GT's because they represent the best you can buy, and I like to see how well they handle different attachments, especially the ground engaging type. And what features they offer like power steering, locking diff, diesel power, hydraulically actuated deck lift and ancillary equipment (attachments). I have perused many different brand-dedicated forums to acquire this info...it's like a hobby that doesn't cost anything (until you actually buy something that is). However, I have since pretty much gone to the "dark side" and will sing the praises of the ZTR to anyone who will listen, now that I own one and see how efficient (and fun) they truly are. However, I won't try to ram them down anyone's throat....especially on a "Lawn and Garden Tractor" forum:) I must say though it is some members on this forum that have helped me to "see the light"...LOL! I have a lawn tractor but it just sits there like an old Farmall tractor put out to pasture while I go whizzing around on my ZTR ;) I have a Japanese compact tractor to handle the tiller work, and so I will never go back to lawn or garden tractor to cut grass...and that's from actual experience.....I would be tempted to pick up a nice JD 445 GT at the right price though :)

It was more that I was soooo excited to have such a great kitchen in a house that was in our price range and I saw it as "wow, I might have picked all of this myself... except for the counters." I really love shaker cabinets and although natural maple wouldn't have been my first choice, it wouldn't have been my last either. From the moment I saw the house I had in my head that the kitchen could be perfect if I just replaced the counters. I LOVE corian counters, I know most don't, but we had them in our first house and I really loved the surface. Then the list of things we wanted to do in "phase 1A" of making the house our own was formed and I just couldn't justify ripping out perfectly functional 1 year old counters because I wanted corian that would have cost nearly $5k. With that same $5k we did everything else in the entire downstairs, including new crown moulding in the dining room and living room, the wallpaper and borders, paint, the floor in the kitchen (the old one was just not functional for us) plus a bunch of plumbing work (some old house issues but also installing a whole house filter, slop sink in basement, plus running water and gas for washer/dryer on the first floor) and other assorted stuff. That money went a LONG way to making the entire house "ours" and frankly, if we had used them for counters i think the impact would not have been as great.... or rather that I managed to achieve just as much impact by changing just about everything else and leaving the counters as is. Unless anyone here has a small house and a huge pot of money I'm sure you all know what I'm talking about on that front. So no, I didn't care much for the counters when I first moved into the house but once I decided to work with them, I surprised myself by how much I ended up liking them. One thing I liked about the PO's kitchen (even though I didn't like a lot of his decor choices) was that it felt fresh and clean and I think the green counters contribute heavily to that. I figured out a way to work my favorite color, cranberry/pomegranite red, into the equation as well as that vintage coziness I was seeking using some of the better parts of my husband's coca cola collection and it all just sort of clicked. I love my house and I love that I've been able to do most things on a budget with a little creativity, some ingenuity and a LOT of patience. To get back OT a little bit, I think actually this is a benefit of a smaller house... yeah you might not have as much room to store materials but the scale of the projects being smaller allows you to save time and money on less materials. Our house is on the big end of small... well, frankly I don't consider 1900 sf to be all that small but we have many rooms, 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, an eat in kitchen, formal dining room, living room, mud room and a fairly large front entry hall and we face a lot of small house challenges because with the exception of our kitchen, our rooms are on the small side... but when we were looking at homes I was overwhelmed at the thought of renovating larger homes. It felt like I'd never be able to get my arms around the whole thing. With a smaller house, there feels like there is an end in sight even with my snail's pace.

Treat it like any other tropical, light regular feeding. Do keep bumping it up in pot size and make sure it has plenty of water in warm weather (but not staying wet). Likes bright light but full sun will burn the leaves. Takes about 5 years to reach blooming and fruiting size. By then you'll want them in at least 30 gallon bins or pots. Blooms are white and fragrant like Jasmine. ;) Mine go outside from spring to autumn on my back deck. They /can/ reach as much as 8 to 12 feet tall but I keep mine trimmed easily at around 5 to 6 foot tall which is typical to keep the beans easy to reach. They tend to flower around June i the hot rainy season, then produce fruit which ripens in late winter through spring. Each coffee 'cherry' holds 2 to 3 beans. Here's a shot of mine growing on my back deck, near right side. I should start some new seedlings for our hoped for greenhouse later. You can get about 1 to 1.5 lbs of beans per mature tree depending on which variety you have. Hmm, I seem to have hijacked the thread. Pardon.