Deanne, it sounds like your brother will be very motivated to become active again. I can imagine the ERs must be flooded with fall injuries. I know you guys are all pro's at winter, but please be so careful driving...and walking! We've had a conga line of ants greeting us in the shower every morning, so I sympathize with the aphis/gnats and glad to hear they're under control. Our little blighters are looking for water, is what I'm told. We've got an uber strain of Argentinian ant that's outcompeted our native ants. My neighbor Holly, former Back Eastie from Maine, has a pest control guy out once a month. I saw him masked and spraying her garden gate area a few days ago, clouds of spray wafting across the street. I completely understand the impulse to have nothing crawling in the house. Pest control should probably be relegated to the categories of religion and politics, never to be discussed. Lovely morning glory, prairiemoon, and good luck finding that dentist. Funny how the new year's resolutions never include stuff like tracking down and buying all black-colored flwrs in existence but run more toward exercise, dental care. But there's nothing to compare to the high one gets AFTER a dentist visit. The sweatered greys spelling out a new year's greeting was a treat, such nice manners! We never watch the Rose Parade, so foolishly missed the Port of LA float. Not a sport fan in the house either so we're out of the loop there too. DH loves attending the big football parties and tries to blend in, but his unpracticed sports commentary always betrays his rookie status. My BIL's enthusiastic commentary is fascinating to listen to when he's watching a game, much more entertaining than the game itself. Kathy, I'm taking notes on selling and moving house. I can't believe you're ready to list. Good work. Look at you, Saucy, "planning a scuba trip," and to warmer water this time. What a blast. All decorations still up here, with the house just beginning to smell piney. Probably means the tree is near to being a fire hazard. Friday will be tree recycling day with the trash, so down it comes by then. Can't wait to hear of the veggie garden plans, Martie. If anyone has any harsh words regarding taking out a beautiful mature noisette climber, let 'em fly. I can't believe I'm contemplating it, but I know from the past that once the thought first crosses my mind, the rose's days are numbered. Cons are it takes up about 1/8 of available growing space, nothing much will grow underneath its arch, a self-sown Euphorbia cotinifolia has sprung up nearby to 8 feet throwing all proportion out of whack. Blooming is decreasing to really one big spring flush. I think the soil's exhausted, which might be a self-serving excuse but I itch to dig over the entire bed and amend it. Bigger leaves are needed in that particular area (Canna musifolia?). The pros are obvious and needn't be listed. I just can't seem to stay committed to roses, which causes much shame. I saw this flash of gold driving across town and tracked it down for this blurry photo. A man with jet black hair down to his waist walked by as I snapped the photo and said "Nice orchids." Maybe some of you grow epidendums as houseplants? I've never been able to grow them like this:

Seems like a difficult business to be in some days. :-) I did a quick search on amazon and came up with this link and another at the bottom of my post. http://www.amazon.com/Operate-Financially-Successful-Landscaping-Business/dp/1601382286/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1279400638&sr=1-1-fkmr2 I would say find a business that is successful and see if you can pick their brain. We seem to be seeing a lot of nurseries going out of business, isn't that true? I would think it's expensive especially if you have to keep greenhouses going. I know Lexington Gardens went out of business a few years ago, and you could see it coming for quite a few years. I was told by someone in management that the cost of fuel to run the greenhouse became outrageous. I know the owner was older and started to have health issues too. As a potential customer, I like that you are inclined toward natives and would love an organic direction as well. I travel a distance to make purchases that are in line with those two basic ideas. I drive 50mins to the NEWFS to buy native, mostly organically grown plant material. I drive the same distance to purchase organic vegetable starts in the spring, in years I don't start my own. I travel to Maine and combine a day trip to justify doing it, to purchase popular perennial and annual 'plugs' once a year in early spring, because so many nurseries that are close to me don't offer a plug size and have just about stopped offering the old '6 pack' size. I buy tiny shrubs from Bluestone Perennials because no one local offers that size and it makes it really affordable. I think a lot of people buy from them because of that and their frequent sales and great customer service. I was going to suggest that if you could model your business on one that didn't need heated greenhouses, you might be ahead of the game. Don't know if that is possible. It would certainly cut your costs, but limit what you offer. Anyway, maybe others can offer their own reasons why they shop at one place or another and what they are looking for in a nursery. Here is a link that might be useful: So you want to start a plant nursery

I'm amazed at the photos and stories of the damage done in other parts of New England. Here in Eastern Massachusetts, we seemed to have had a mild experience in comparison to others. We had wind and a small amount of rain but it was pretty manageable. Two medium branches were on the ground from Maples and that was about it as far as damage. Two streets over there was a power outage that didn't reach us on Sunday during the day, so we had power all day and then lost it about midnight Sunday night for about 4 hours and that was pretty easy to tolerate. But hearing that some people in our state may have to wait until the end of the week for power to be restored, makes me feel we should prepare better next time, because that could have just as easily have been us. I would have been ready to tolerate a couple of days without power, but 5 days plus, seems like more than we would have tolerated easily. I'm glad it wasn't worse than it was. Seemed to be a lot more damage from a tropical storm than I would have expected though. Hope that everyone here is doing well and not having a lot of damage to deal with.

If no one minds that I hijack mtn's thread... we got back Monday night, actually 3 am Tuesday, from our Seattle/Vancouver trip. We had delays in Phoenix, so it took us a total of 21 hours to get from Vancouver to Boston! Ugh. We started in Seattle. Needless to say, meeting Mtn and Mr. Mtn was the best part. :) The funniest was seeing how quickly the DH's hit it off. Mtn and I could have wandered off and they wouldn't have noticed. Second best was the Chihuly museum and gardens. Really didn't expect to like it THAT much, but we were all so impressed. DH and sons really loved the EMP Museum. DD and I were more "meh" about it. Really just liked Seattle Center in general. Space Needle was cool. We had lunch at the Collections Café at Chihuly, which we also liked a lot. Also in Seattle, we did the Underground tour, which everyone enjoyed for the Seattle history lesson. We all loved Fremont! Shops, Sunday Market, lunch at the Cantina (not sure it that's the exact name). Even though it was chilly, we also enjoyed the Argosy Locks boat tour and later went back to Ballard to see the Locks and the salmon ladders, and browsed some shops. We walked thru part of the Olympic Sculpture Park but it was at the end of a long day, so I don't think we appreciated it as much as we should have. Went for a ride on the Great Wheel. Drove to Snowqualmie Falls and Gasworks Park (so cool!). Took the ferry to Bainbridge Island and had lunch there and poked in some shops. Oh! Of course we went to Pike Place Market several times. We had great meals everywhere, and the weather was perfect while we were there. Vancouver...rained almost the whole time. Gah. Still loved it, but would have loved it more if the weather were better. We carried on and did everything we'd planned to do. We stayed in the same floating home Mtn mentioned, and she kindly left us a pretty bouquet on the dining table! (Thanks, Mtn!) I asked for chocolates, but whatevs. We walked around downtown Vancouver a lot. (In both cities, we had 15,000-20,000 steps on the fitbit on most days.) We went to Capilano Suspension Bridge, which scared the --- out of me, especially in the rain because it seemed like it should be slippery, even though it actually wasn't. Such a neat place, and wish we could have seen it in better weather. DH and kids went white water rafting in Squamish, which was more hair-raising than their experience in Iceland, but they loved it. I stayed safely behind and shopped in Vancouver. Loved a store called Poppy & Rye for clothing and bought a couple of things there. We went on a whale watch, which was very different from the whale watch we did off Cape Cod many years ago. I was nervous when we had to get suited up in similar suits we wore for white water rafting in Iceland, and when the guide talked about procedures for when someone goes overboard...but it was all good! We saw many bald eagles and seals, but just one whale, and it was a humpback, not an orca. And we were out for 7 hours. So, while it was still enjoyable, it felt like a long day to see just one whale that we could have seen closer to home. On our last day, the sun came out and we walked to Stanley Park... we didn't have enough time to find/rent bikes but would love to return and do that one day. Again, we had lots of good meals, and I am sure we all gained a few lbs. All in all, it was a great trip. I would go back, and would stay longer to explore some of the surrounding areas.