Well, the rose I bought looks like Ducher to me. Frankly, I was convinced it was. The blooms are all white and the foliage looks very china to me. The reason I asked about it being Smith's Parish Yellow is that the store called me, knowing I'd thought I'd purchased Ducher, and told me the grower says she believes it to be Smith's Parish Yellow. It was not labeled and I am thinking it was back there in the store since the last season when they did have Ducher. When the labels disappear, the roses sit there forever. My only doubt was that here in hot Florida, the bloom could have bleached out a tade. It looks perfectly all white though. Those other possibilities listed, this grower hasn't put in this store before. I go there often. I am going to have to get a direct line with this grower and find out more. Thanks guys!

I was born in N.O. and lived in St. Bernard Parish (in Oak Ridge Park in Violet) for 47 yrs, until I lost all, including my beautiful gardens and plants, to Katrina. Thank you for any and all help you can give. I have relocated for now to NE MISS but my brother is rebuilding there. I have many many other family who lost all there. Many trees grow there but do consider hurricane and flood potential. And we do need greenery fast to help with air quality, erosion control, shade, and our emotional health. I gardened there for last 22 yrs. Trees that did very well: crape myrtles, chinese tallow (great fall color, but were considered a "nuisance" tree becoz they re-seed prolifically), drake elm, cassia, oaks, bald cypress (beware the cypress knees if you have to mow and these trees get very large), sweet gum (also get very large). I prefer smaller trees that will not fall on the house. Please get in touch with Dan Gill. He is the resident Louisiana plant guru and has a gardening radio show on Sat. am. He is with LSU Ag center. He will be a great help and knows it all about LA. He was,is quite involved with the rebuilding as far as plants, gardens are concerned. Please post your progress occasionally with subject line "ST Bernard" or Katrina or something like that. I would love to follow your progress. My address included Acorn, Oak, and Violet! And I felt it fit me so well. I miss home so much.

Sorry for the late post to this fascinating thread. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but I used to work for a mining company that had extensive interests in LA. My first reaction was that there might be informal ways to solve the problem there that are less common in other parts of the country. I know when I was a kid in NYC, informal dealings with government bureaucracy was a business necessity, and I'm sure they still are in certain parts of LA. Xavier, let me add my voice to those who've gone past youth and seen how life changes one. Not changing is very bad, evil actually. The second your child is born you will be a changed human being. Have you ever noticed the subtle difference between adults who've had kids and those who haven't? That change is called love. And if people originally gave you a hard time on this thread, trust me, it was done through love. Construction and real estate are humbling professions. Amazing things can and do go wrong (as an example, the most reliable person I know destroyed a $5,000 toilet last week by dropping it. Things happen.) Professionals are worth what they charge if they do a good job. I'm saving perhaps 200k by being my own gc on my MBR renovation, the same kind of money you're talking about. But I'm under no delusion that it's really saving me money. If I put the same effort in my business, I would probably come out far ahead. It just suits my style to do it this way and allow me to get exactly what I want. No contractor would put up with my style without enormous change order fees. But I still rely on experts for many things, architects, engineers, contractors I know, suppliers, variance lawyers (try getting one in NYC someday). Whoever I work with, it's as a team, in which everyone is entitled to be wrong (and will be) and everyone is free to correct each others mistakes. I'm bothering to write this because I was frankly impressed with the quality of the advice you were given. Good advice like this is both hard to find and quite expensive. People can spend thousands of dollars on professionals and not get such good advice. That advice was offered to you as a gift, out of love. Well, you've been lucky. Once. Congratulations. It's always a lot better to be lucky than smart (and usually easier.) Sometimes it happens. The church I go to made mistake after mistake in trying to find a new worship space and ignored the advice of anyone with experience and intelligence. Through dumb luck they landed on their feet after a series of incredible errors, and I must say my respect for the Holy Spirit has been solidified. But don't count on luck. It turns. The best reason to undertake a project like you are doing is that you learn and change by doing something so difficult and seeing it through to the end. My hope for you has nothing to do with whether you succeed or fail in getting your house built, for I have no idea which outcome is actually better for you. My hope is that as a result of doing something so difficult you change and change your outlook on life and come to realize that "government job" for the rest of your life is not what you were created to do and not what would give you the most satisfying life. All the best, Frank

At the following url is a whole PDF file on Kerdi and its installation, as well as a streaming video on an installation. The only difference between what you'll see in the video and what I'd want to do is that I'd much rather make my own curb and mud my own shower pan, rather than using the preformed ones that they have. As for why Kerdi-- First, in any steam shower you MUST have a completely enveloping waterproof barrier-- not just in the shower pan. Up until the kerdi came along, I usually used a trowel applied membrane, being that sheetmembranes have seams to them, where leaks can occur. However, with the Kerdi, although it has seams, I was willing to try it due to the fact that Schluter is one of the most reputable companies in the industry, and they wouldn't market a product unless there'd been extensive r&d done on it, as well as testing to make sure it was a top notch product. They're one of those companies that you here about every so often that if there's a problem with their product, they'll replace the whole installation as well as anything that their failure might ruin. So I tried it, and I've got to say, I've done about a dozen or so kerdi showers, better than half of those being steam showers, and I've yet to have a single problem. The best thing I like about them is the integral drain that goes along with the system. Whereas most waterproofing systems are just like normal showers where the pan is concerned-- first the preslope, then the pan membrane, then the mud, and then the tile-- the Kerdi system has taken the mud right out of the pan, and put it UNDER it. The membrane actually attaches to the TOP of the drain, so there's NO chance of water sitting in the pan under the tile and having problems down the road with all the lovely things associated with that, like mold, mildew, bacteria, etc..The tile is thinsetted directly to the membrane, so that it (the tile) is the only thing between the water and the membrane, and it's that much easier for all the water to either drain out of the pan, or evaporate into the air. There aren't many products in this industry that I'd give a 10 to, but Kerdi is no doubt, one of them. One of the most innovative products to come down the pyke in a long time. Here is a link that might be useful: Schluter Kerdi