Thanks for adding your suggestions, Renee! And gypsy, I think your garden is lovely, don't sell yourself short! And thank you Renee for your kind comments. It is such a pretty, pretty area of our yard, and my husband is on board for it to stay formal. And yes, these rose trees are breathtaking. Every year the perform better and better. They are nearly 8 feet in diameter right now . We're going to have to re-stake them. Again. With something really massive, lol! House is sort of a beige with medium brown trim. Sounds ugly, but it is sort ofTuscan in its style, and it's a nice neutral color. Here's an old photo of the house (much more landscaping and fruit trees, now). My formal garden area is on the left side of the house: Colors for the flowering plants. Thinking purple (have some variegated lavender colored iris that will stay, just need to be dug up and repositioned), pink and white. And some silver foliage and green foliage. The lavender I was thinking of using is Lavandula angustifolia 'Thumbelina Leigh'. Very nice, well behaved, very rich green foliage and deep blue purple flower heads. Plus, it is very fragrant. I have found this to be one of the very best lavenders for small spaces, just has so many great qualities. I was also thinking of maybe using some Dianthus? I found these 'Super Trouper' in a fuschia pink, which I think would be a nice color accent. Foliage is silvery: White Meidiland roses would be great. Or some white rose. I have a lone 'Glamis Castle' that looks gorgeous below the 'Red Fairy' tree rose. So, yes, white roses would be very pretty. I'd love to have any DA rose, so I might try to mix and match pink, purple and white DA's in the middle of the triangles. For the shady areas, I could go with a white Kalanchoe, or a white begonia with the Hellebores. The shady area is much more difficult to plant. Patty S. This post was edited by hoosierquilt on Mon, May 20, 13 at 18:44

Of course you can display it....soak it in 20% peroxide or clorox for several days and it will lighten up. And it probably isn't what's displayed on Worth Point as it's not an Aesthetic Movement pattern. The Chinese piece isn't discolored in the same way the English piece is....the glaze is not crackled....so all the soaking in the world won't change the discoloration.....but a good scrubbing will. And the mark is most likely NOT computer generated. That is a real piece of old Chinese porcelain, but I don't believe from 1890.....more like 1910. The Chinese often used the dynasty mark years after that dynasty had ended. 2 nice old pieces....but dirty. Clean them up....the colors won't fade. Linda C

I also see the ******renade,(possible serenade) but don't continue reading the letters after that because they'll be upside down, lol. The print is in two lines, around the circle one banner above the other. It looks like the last letters of the next easily visible printing are *******MO(Y?)LS or MOYES Take a light with a very strong beam and shine it across the relief of the mark from the side at a very sharp angle to throw the indentation into sharp shadow. If you using a camera with flash, you may want to snap a shot that way. I do photographs of old gravestones for my research and this often works better than rubbing.

One of the things to suggest that it is plate is if you can see a different metal where the worn areas are. Knives are a little different depending on the age as sometimes a harder metal was used for the blade.