Hey ya'll! I just want to let you know that Nandina sent me some cuttings of the white Cat's Whiskers. They are happily rooting in glasses of water in my sunny southern window in here. I cannot do much moving around right now, but I can look at them everyday and feel close to my gardens. The weather has been kind and we got some much needed rain, so for now, my gardens are doing okay without my tender care. Nandina was oh, so VERY generous and sent me some other lovelies, as well. Thank you so much. You are all so kind. I am thrilled to pieces with all the things she sent me! All are thriving. TriangleJohn & Kamilyen have both offered to share some of their Cat's Whiskers with me and I would definitely like to have a few of the purple ones, that's for certain. I am enamoured with Cat's Whiskers! Maybe it would be easier for you to just mail them to me??? I just hate to be a bother to anyone. I can reimburse you for the cost of shipping. Thank you both. You are so sweet! I love you guys. You cannot know how much your friendship and correspondence means to me. Although it is only through e-mail and the Internet that I have become acquainted with you, I feel like we are friends and that means a great deal to me, especially now. My life is in such turmoil and my current health comlicates things even more, so my future is one of much uncertainty. You cannot know how much your humour and gaeity and comradery on here helps me deal with everything I am enduring. I don't know where I will be living in the future. I am still hoping to move to the Carolinas to be near my daughter, but I will keep in touch with you no matter where I end up, that is for certain. Thanks for welcoming me into your midst. Your Carolina-wanna-be-friend, ~Annie (SweetAnnie)

Jack, I can understand why an anonymous note would make you uncomfortable, and I can also understand why you don't want to name the plant because it's irrelevant to the discussion. However, if it is on your state's noxious list, should you as a responsible citizen continue to offer it for sale? If it is not on the list then there's no issue. Here's what I would do. Print out the "Severe Threat" list for your state from the Invasives.org website Vaccinium provided, post it in a prominent location and post below it your "Company Policy" that your customers will never find one of these plants for sale at your nursery. How many of your customers have actually ever seen that list? And, how many confuse "invasive" with "aggressive spreaders or seeders"? You'll be educating them. If a customer questions the invasiveness of a plant you sell, you can show them the list and explain the difference. I have never seen and never expect to see Japanese Honeysuckle, Kudzu, Tree of Heaven, Mimosa, Common Privet, or Chinese Privet for sale at any nursery in the South. However, I have purchased Variegated Porcelain Berry and have it growing on an arbor. That plant is not on my state's invasive list, but is on "Watch List B, plants that are severe problems in surrounding states, but have not been reported in Tennessee". I'll watch it. Interestingly enough on "Watch List A: Exotic plants that naturalize and may become a problem in the future", among others are listed Buddleia, Cosmos, Rose of Sharon, Spearmint, Peppermint, and Grape Hyacinth. All of these are commonly found in every nursery and most gardens. Where do you draw the line? Do you refuse to sell any plant that is listed on not only the Severe Threat List, but also the lower threat lists the watch lists? That's your decision and your conscience.

If you would allow me to chime in here as someone who has cleaned thousands of area rugs (thanks squirrel for the title :-)) Very briefly.... Enzyme based products are safe to use on all rugs. Enzymes eat the protiens in urine, blood, etc. The enzymes do not make a rug bleed. Enzyme based cleaners are marketed under different names, choose one and use it asap when a spot is discovered. Whether or not a spot/stain will come out is a whole 'nuther story and based upon various factors, the same as why some rugs bleed and others don't--more reasons than I can list here at the moment. Rugs come into my shop daily with some type of pet accident, so trust me when I say I've seen them all, including the accidents my own pets make at home :D Having been a member of GW for so many years, I think I should put together an easy to read 'how to' list about tackling pet accidents. Your questions and comments are most insightful. Jane

Sure, and they all have memories and stories. Many years ago, I worked on one of Christopher Alexander's houses in the Berkeley hills. He used a lot of graduate student grunt labor. His team would take months to make even the most trivial decisions, with endless discussions. IIRC that house took five years to finish, and the couple who commissioned it got divorced before it was done. I once lived down the street from a pair of Thomas Gordon Smith post-modern numbers (the Tuscan and Laurentian), kind of a snarky send up of the typical suburban snout house. They were painted in a sort of Pompeii meets Miami Vice color scheme, with a neoclassical column in the middle of their wide garage doors, to break up the span. Sadly, one house was eventually repainted in boring colors, and some quirky exterior details removed. I never saw the insides, which were painted in huge classical style murals. When I first got married we went to England and saw the Colefax and Fowler building, the one with the Wyatt/Wyattville yellow drawing room. It's up on the second floor, via a dark, narrow, twisty flight of stairs papered with what look to be bad baroque paintings, but may be theatrical backdrops. The room itself isn't as wide or tall as it looks in pictures, and the arc of the ceiling is quite shallow. When I saw it, all the Nancy Lancaster furniture was gone, it was full of lamps. The paint work was a little obscured by nicotine and wood smoke, but you could still see the complicated oil glazing-- there are tiny pin point flecks of many colors in the glaze, which give an almost pearly effect. I think Fowler deliberately allowed the painters to use dirty brushes!