Hi d_giffin, thank you so much! I like the white peonies very much now. Yes, sometimes mistakes can make it better! :-) George, I want to first of all tell you how much I really appreciate you giving me all the advice! Thank you! You know, I actually realized that I might be overcrowding these paniculatas. However, I did it anyway, thinking that I might be able to severely prune these lovelies every year to keep their size down, and more importantly, I did it for a selfish reason - I know that this is not my forever house, and I probably will only be here for a few more years. I wanted to enjoy these paniculatas and so I just planted them there, realizing that they may not be fully grown before I leave... ouch! I hope that is not too selfish. You know what? The worst thing is that someone or myself will need to chop down the shrub(s). The physocarpus is Summer Wine, which is actually supposed to be only half the size of Diablo and Coppertina. So it is much more compact. The crabapple is supposed to be about 12' tall when fully grown. Yes, it may create some shade, but with crabapple, the foliage is not that dense so it should not be too much of a problem. The neighbors' shrub was always a mystery to me, until recently! They did not even know what it was - they just planted it there several years ago!!! Anyway, it's a lilac... yikes! It might get big. The thing that gets me is that the buds get eaten by the deer every year before they bloom! Sigh... I am going to advice my neighbors to prune it hard every year! LOL Anyway, if I do want to move the Limelight, since it was in a 5 gallon pot before and this is its 3rd season now, how deep and widespread should I expect the roots to be? I want to make sure that I will dig carefully just so that I won't damage the sprinkler system. The trouble is, if I did move it, I am not sure where to put it then... Hey, George, if you remember, I already removed the Pink Diamond from this bed to another corner after your advice last fall!!! :-) Thanks again!

If you like the placement of your range and sink, the easiest change would be to place the MW/oven stack to the left of the range, and then surround the refrigerator with two pantry cabinets for symmetry or just one larger pantry cabinet to the right of the refrigerator. It looks like you have enough space to separate your clean-up and cooking zones without creating a traffic bottleneck with your DW, ovens and refrigerator grouped together. Here's a similar L-shaped layout which would switch your sink and range and give you a nice work triangle if you added a prep sink to the island. Personally, I like this layout as it gives you a lot of prep space across from the range and nicely separates the clean-up zone. If you have an exterior wall, I would definitely consider adding a window(s).

Not a sign of distress......that's just how it grows :-) Hydrangeas are caning shrubs, not trees, and are carefully trained into a tree-like form by removing lower branches. Those are just the starts of new branching and you do want to remove if you wish to maintain the plant as a 'tree'. Don't "chop" off - rub them off with your fingers while still very new and young. This leaves no stubs or scarring and tends to limit any regrowth in that area.

You only buy porcelains n tile once. It is a lifetime floor if done correctly. You’ll buy vinyl 5-6 times in 50 years of living there.