Konrad, that does make for a nice raised bed :) With having a large yard and well amended relatively weed free productive soil, I hadn't looked into using the bale method and had wondered why anyone would even bother ... though, last night I had watched several videos and my thoughts had changed as I observed the benefits to be had under certain circumstances and am now "almost" tempted to try it with some peppers, as I guess they do especially well when bale grown. Mmmm, I do have some two year old bales sitting at the back of my yard, but I'd be more inclined to do as Konrad's posted photo, because I'd like for the plants to draw the nutrients from the soil, rather than me having to be dosing the bales with fertilizer. Peppers require very good drainage and this would certainly provide for such and requires no carpentry skills of needing to cut and nail a bunch of boards together :)

I have quite a few roses that aren't looking very good right now...blackspot, lost leaves, but most of the leaves on Westerland are looking good. Rifis, if you notice in my pics of Autumn Sunset one of the pics is a pale apricot. Maybe nurseries have noticed this color variation as well. If they're selling A. S. as a pale apricot maybe they think people would like that better than the strong, school bus yellow it often is. I have no idea what oldrosarian meant, seeming to say that A.S. should always be a strong yellow when it isn't always strong yellow. But it more often is strong yellow so if you just put up one pic of it it would be more accurate to have one of strong yellow.

I don't have enough buckthorns to warrant buying an uprooter, but it would be nice to have. The Cynanchum laeve, Ipomoea pandurata are back. More milkweeds coming back. My Penstemon smallii and digitalis have flower buds. We had a huge downpour. Now it's a slow steady rain. The weather is making it hard to get much done. I put the majority of the milkweeds outside. Now it appears that 2 spicebush are alive, bso I'll hold on to the others, just in case. There aren't many bugs around. I saw a red admiral. There are still a bunch of empty containers with no germination.

Thanks, Miranda! I’m so sorry to hear the Taft Pearl isn’t working for you. I too have been suspicious of the ivory/white sofa claims. I have been shooting for a light beige/greige or taupe but not cream or ivory. I don’t have kids or dogs, but I plan to entertain a lot in this room and I don’t want to be terrified my friends will spill something. That was a factor in my rug decision too. I love the ivory trellis rug look but was worried about a rug that was too light. I will take a look at the Axis with a single cushion - thanks for that tip! I like the style of the Lounge better than the Axis too. But the Lounge in a Douglas fabric is $900 more than the Axis in a Douglas fabric, as it’s stock for the Douglas. So I need to decide if the Lounge is worth the extra money to me. Btw - I am going for a roughly 90” sofa. So it would be 88” if I get the Axis and 93” if I get the Lounge. So that is a consideration too. I’m going to cut out some butcher paper to put on my living floor to see if 93” feels too big.