hello PF spring is my favorite season. which araucaria? angustifolia or araucaria?LOL i have a large 9 ft angustifolia planted at my parents house thats had a hard time. hurricane ivan blew it over in sept. a tornadic tstorm blew it over again in late november.(luckily the circulation lifted before my parents neighborhood) my mother tried to straighten it again after storms tilted it again this spring and she accidentslly snapped the leader. what more could go wrong with this tree? LOL the other angustifolias look great.

Blanca, Thanks for your kind words..I must admit I was very pleased that this bulb has such a noticeable picotee.. Anton, Actually I don't know what the difference is if any..I always shied away from buying an picotee of any type as I really don't like the picotee with the line so thin you have to use a magnifying lens to see it! But, this one was at the nursery and it was a big hard bulb so I just took a chance and I was very pleased. You still have to get close to the flowers to see the picotee but it's most definitely there. There is another variety called Picote Red Lining but I've never seen that one offered.. This plant is dripping with pollen and it has fallen all over the place so there may be a few selfings in the future..if anyone is interested... Donna

According to a book I have on cannas, "Pink President" is the same vaiety as "Miss Oklahoma", or "Los Angeles", although I purchased "Los Angeles" years ago from a local store and it does not look like "Miss Oklahoma". I would think "Miss Oklahoma" is the one you are looking for. I have not grown it, but have seen it in mass plantings in a botanical garden in Dallas, and it was most impressive.

Breezy I went to Fireclay and Heath Today to finalize my own backsplash. Some info for your consider. Heath tile - several of their glazes have some copper in them. They are all about using traditional natural materials. But this also means that the tile glaze can etch! I tried it with some of the green tiles I had and sure enough I was able to etch a couple of them with lemon juice. I was really disappointed and even considered if I can live with it.. Patina and all that. But I could see the spots in the undercabinet light and DH hated the etches. So reluctantly I have given up the wide hex twist with 3 colors with glossy and matte that I had fallen in love with :( This is not to say that this won't work for you. Not all of their glazes etch. Depending on the colors you want, call Eric their tile manager and see what will work. One more thing - some of their tiles are dark clay body and others are white clay. As the glaze has a lot of dimension, the colors really work better if you select all white clay or all dark clay. Fireclay - Debris series is dark clay body and Vitrail is light clay. Again not advisable to mix tiles between the two. Debris is also a tad thicker tile. Vitrail depending on the color has some crackle in it. It is all organic and not exactly the same. As the tiles have a handmade quality to them, it looked like you can't really get a small tight grout line. Not sure how important this is for you. I finally have decided on backsplash tile from fireclay and have placed my order. They also have this thinner super large format tile that was just awesome. May work in a contemporary kitchen like yours. Lots of zen like colors and you can definitely get small tight grout lines with these. Yolanda who works there is very knowledgeable and helpful. This post was edited by GWlolo on Sun, Mar 24, 13 at 2:55