In my zone 6b Pennsylvania garden, I grown Gemini, Tamora, Lavaglut and olog. I have a friend in the same zone (near me) who has Cherry Parfait and a DIL who has Frederick Mistral. I'm thinking you might have slightly more humidity than I. My gardens are all day south exposed full sun. Gemini is a wonderful rose and does quite well, even with disease resistance, but like Diane NJ say, it shuts down over the very hottest, most humid part of the summer. Winters, it seems quite strong. Besides being very small, Tamora doesn't do so well in the heat and humidity either and is more prone to black spot. I'm not as thrilled with this rose as I could be and it suffers from winter die back. Frederick Mistral also suffers from winter kill, but not to the extent as Tamora. It is also a larger bush, more heat tolerant but still prone to black spot. Cherry Parfait, olog and Lavaglut are all outstanding in the gardens around here. Cherry Parfait is more prone to black spot, but is winter strong. Olog and lavaglut will get blackspot in my garden toward the end of the season and I do spray, but not as regularily as some of the others. Remember to keep Tamora, olog and Lavaglut toward the front of the bed since all these roses have a tendency to be squatty. Tamora looks more like a miniature except for the leaf and bloom size. The plant is so extremely tiny. This is just my take. All roses act differently in different areas.

Jandey, I understand the butter and shoe horn technique well, and you certainly sound like a master. Like Laura said, where there's a will there's a way, and this group has a lot of will!! Love the ET Lemon Drop, still trying to get one. Dave, that's the part of my yard I call The West Lawn. It's between themed areas of my yard. On the West Lawn near the house, there are plumerias (Bali Hai, Cerise, California Sunrise, unknown yellow), plus passionfruit, banana and plantain. On the side you're commenting on are most of the fruit trees - lemon, persimmon, guava, peach, apricot, tangerine, a couple of avocados, loquat and almond. Mango, orange, lime and apple trees are all in the Farmhouse Garden section of the yard, with a bunch of herbs and some Japanese Maples. On the north side of the West Lawn, which borders "the High Country" are pine and Norfolk Island Pine. I have a Jacaranda and an Australian Flame tree at the bottoml, side by side, as I saw a pic where these both bloom at the same time - the former with purple flowers and the latter with crimson red. The Jacaranda has been a faithful bloomer. The flame tree focused on growing this, its second year, in which it almost doubled in size. I expect nice blooming from both next year. The High Country has dogwood, redbud, laurel and a berry patch (blackberry, boysenberry, blueberry, lingonberry, huckleberry, raspberry and white currants). The side of the West Lawn bordering the Swimmin' Hole has Cuban Royal, Teddy Bear and King palm trees along a fence covered in purple and yellow Trumpet Vines. Behind the fence in the Swimming Hole are several larger plumerias between the palms - Pop's, Loretta and Jeannie Moragne. Most of the plumeria are around the Swimmin' Hole, but "Na Pali (the Cliffs)" and "The Springs" all have plumeria, too. Na Pali is a terraced hillside overlooking the pool. I'm thinking of removing a huge pine there (there are five others in the High Country), and put plumeria trees all up the terraced hill, between Kentia and Flamethrower and bamboo palms. Now that should be a site! The Spings has beautiful Brazilian Tower trees, bamboo palms, and more plumeria. And let's face it, my big Shed in the back would be much for useful as a greenhouse than a shed, so that conversion will happen next year! So I really do still have room for more plumies, especially large ones, in case anyone is clearing some space and need to get rid on some.:) This yard was practically barren (except for the tall pines and some fruit trees) when I moved here a couple of years ago. Not anymore. It's not as dramatic or as nice as it sounds, though, the plants are still not that large, there's a ton to do and I'm in the early stages of a multi-year plan, it's all a work in progress. Sorry I got carried away! I love all these trees, and I left out a lot!

Hi. Names on Sansevierias are a total mess. 'Lillian True' is actually an alternate name for 'Slipped Stripes'. The plant you call 'Black Gold' is actually 'Compacta', and unfortunately 'Black Gold' is an alternate name. There is a REAL 'Black Gold', which is a very dark form of trifasciata, with leaves that mature to be far darker than normal trifasciata, and new leaves have dark horizontal stripes on a pale silvery background. 'Slipped Stripes/Lillian True' is similar to 'Compacta/Black Gold'. But 'Compacta's yellow variegation is confined to the margins only. 'Lillian True' may have yellow striping thruout the leaf, some leaves may be almost entirely yellow. Also, the striping on the front does not match the striping on the back. Gwen, I think $8 is an OK price for either of these Sans. I attended the USF sale, and if we're talking about the same plants, they were 'Compacta', not 'Lillian True'. I didn't look at them closely, but I'm sure the only yellow on the plants was confined to just the margins. I did buy a 'Hahnii Marginated' since it was a nice clone and well grown. There were some other Sans also for sale. Russ

If budget really isn't a problem, and you can afford to wait a while, a new technology called SED is on its way. The result of a collaboration between Toshiba and Canon, Surface emitter Electron Display sets use electron emmission technology just like a CRT (so the picture quality is every bit as good), but since the electron emmission is from the surface rather than a gun, SED sets will have a flat screen form factor, something like 4cm or so. These will be the new standard for light, slim, flat screen displays. The picture quality will blow LCD and plasma away (real blacks, very short recovery time for pixels so no blur in fast images), and will use less power than LCD or plasma, too. And they'll be 1920 x 1080. Sorry to complicate your choice even more, but if you can wait these sets really sound like they'll be worth it. From what I've read production has already started, and sets will be available end of this year or early part of next. Pricing should be comparable to plasma, and the first models will be in the 40-50 inch range. If you need something right away, I personally like plasma. CRT is too small and heavy, LCD doesn't have true blacks (neither does plasma but it's better than LCD), and RP sets have too small a viewing angle. As for ED vs. HD, if you can afford it I'd go HD. I compared the Panasonic sets and, while the ED picture looked good, I saw "jaggies" around the text that wasn't there on the HD, and the HD sets seemed to have better depth. Personally I'm waiting, only because I can't currently afford a good plasma HD, especially when SED is less than a year away.