Amazing comments almost to the point of entertaining Short punch in here A neighbor of mine has a cactus called M elongata that's been in a deep heavy soil for years. I cringe too, yet even thou it is in a super saturated heavy soil of a deep PLASTIC container it grows and it's growing rather well if I may add It's not that you have gotten poor advice to not use peat for cactus fact is alot of the info you have read is cross talk chit chat, how it is intended for for better growing of cactus is beyound me too Perhaps a cyber nudge or two to someone else in there persistence or insistence to NOT USE peat is all it is. The Elongata I discribed is an oddity to even me, regardless of what is said or insulted upon in a public forum it grows. The the lesson I get to learn is this: Some plants NOT ALL have an ability to adapt to there environment regraldless of what insults others may share or the soil it rest in. Hypercritical: In one thread they are saying how great and knowledgeable the GW forum people are and then the GREAT AND KNOWLAGABLE say the opposite on a different thread On this thread my thought is. Adapting to an environment: If they think insulting makes my plants grow better then let them insult away. In reality it doesn't allow any plant to grow better but it did allow them to show there true self. IMO They should of spoke for themselves with at least an ounce of respect to another persons opinion

No one said Great Dixter! Christopher Lloyds garden! I find that garden amazing because it has been evolving for so long under him and his father before.A bit more masculine than Sissinghurst, more Harold less Vita, nice edwardian feel to it. Agree with Laura that Scotney is lovely - it helps to have a little romantic castle as a centrepiece. Chatsworth gardens stunning, and at Castle Howard you cant help but feel that you're walking around the set of Brideshead revisited. The gardens along the North west coast of scotland and the isles are amazing. Gulf stream means that all sorts of improbable plants grow there and you find gardens full of lush exotics in the middle of otherwise barren landscape. So my list has to be: Hidcote, Sissinghurst, Gt Dixter, Chatsworth, Biddulph Grange (high Victorian eccentricity), Brodick castle(Isle of Arran), Inverewe (Scotland), Bodnant (this is a real gem! in N.Wales) and Powyss (Wales), Stourhead and Stowe, and Studley Royal/Fountains Abbey. So thats my list! Scott.

Oh, I want to play where do you put the fruit. But first thanks for the laughs. I haven't been on here for awhile. Bad things have been happening lately and I'm just mentally curled into a fetal position - I don't care about my future kitchen or house. I had some spare time today and thought I would just lurk here for awhile, so glad I did. Biochem - I have never seen catalog living before, I spent quite a bit of time over there giggling out loud. It's hard to explain to a five year old why a bowl of sticks is so funny. Aliris - I love your kitchen even more now and I totally empathize with you cleaning doggy doo doo off of everything. It's ridiculous how often this happens since we moved. Of course our dog has to be tied up now and for some reason she favours the little brick path from our front door to the driveway. Well, here are my apples. My DH likes to buy three bushels at a time. It's getting harder to find good ones to eat, I guess it's time for PIE or maybe just CRISP. I've been on a baking strike since we moved here because I'm sulking and I hate to totally give in. Btw that is a circular saw in my kitchen. This place is special.

from Journal of Horticulture & Cottage Gardener, December 2, 1875, p.482: THE ROSE ELECTION—ROSES AND NOSES. I take now the concluding portion of the Rose election for 1875, that of perfume. This is a novel attempt; I am not certain that it is successful. Electors, not a few, appear to distrust their nasal organs, and others confess to a want of education of these organs as connected with Roses. Although "a Rose by any other name would smell as sweet," yet it would certainly appear that not a few Rose-growers allow her in some degree to " waste her sweetness on the desert air." There is little doubt that Rose-growers for exhibition look at a Rose twenty times before applying to them that organ for which in the "Eyes versus Nose" of Cowper, "the spectacles" were really intended. Few rosarians can lay claim to such an educated organ as Mr. Curtis, Devon Rosery, Torquay; and if the wise men came from the east, at least it seems to me that the appreciators of Rose perfume dwell in the west, for Mr. R. W. Beachey and Mr. Curtis are the only electors who appear to have analysed the various perfumes that our national flower possesses. This, their lists, the only lists of perfume I shaII print, sufficiently prove. In undertaking this election I was prepared for some extraordinary results. In my weakness I fancied the old Cabbage Rose must be near the head of the poll; but it is far from that, and I can only imagine that many electors have never had the opportunity of testing the merits of this delicious old Rose. Let me, however, first present the poll- premising that as only twenty electors have ventured to give their opinions on this point, I have mixed the two classes of electors together, believing that there was nothing to be gained by the separation, and that one class of nose was just as god as another. The first column of figures, A, denotes the number of times each Rose is named in the first twelve; the other, B, the votes in the second thirteen; whilst the last column shows the number of votes each Rose received. Number, Name, Row A, Row B, Total. 1. La France ... 19, 1, 20 2. Devoniensis ... 13, 5, 18 3. Maréchal Niel ... 11, 4, 15 4. Charles Lefebvre ... 10, 4, 14 5. Louis Van Houtte ... 8, 6, 14 6. Gloire de Dijon ... 9, 4, 13 7.—8. Alfred Colomb ... 5, 8, 13 Marie Baumann ... 5, 8, 13 9. Bessie Johnson ... 6, 6, 12 10. Abel Grand ... 6, 5, 11 11. Sénateur Vaisse ... 5, 6, 11 12. Camille Bernardin ... 6, 4, 10 13. Souvenir d'un Ami ... 4, 6, 10 14. Céline Forestier ... —, 9, 9 15. Goubault ... 7, 1, 8 16.—17. Madame Knorr ... 4, 4, 8 Cabbage... 4, 4, 8 18. Catherine Mermet ... 5, 2, 7 19. Pierre Notting ... 4, 3, 7 20.— 23. Richard Wallace ... 2, 5, 7 Mad. Victor Verdier ... 2, 5, 7 Mdlle. Marie Rady ... 2, 5, 7 Jules Margottin ... 2, 5, 7 24. Madame Furtado ... 3, 3, 6 25. Ferd. de Lesseps ... 2, 4, 6 26.—27. Comtesse Cécile de Chabrillant ... 1, 5, 6 François Michelon ... 1, 5, 6 28. Général Jacqueminot ... 3, 2, 5 29.—30. Duchess of Edinburgh ... 2, 3, 5 Old Moss ... 2, 3, 5 31. Xavier Olibo ... 1, 4, 5 32.—33. Rev. J. B. Camm ... 4, —, 4 Soupert et Notting (Moss) ... 4 —, 4 34.—35. Duke of Edinburgh ... 1, 3, 4 Madame Fillion ... 1, 3, 4 36. Madame Willermoz ... —, 4, 4 37. Mad. C. Joigneaux ... 3, —, 3 38.—39. Narcisse ... 2, 1, 3 Desprez à Fleur Jaune ... 2, 1, 3 40.—41. Dr. Andry ... 2, 1, 3 Aline Sisley ... 2, 1, 3 42. John Hopper ... —, 3, 3 Here is a table that I feel confident will excite some surprise. La France alone nearly achieves a first-class certificate all round, only one elector giving her a second-class vote. It has not been my custom hitherto to mention these eccentricities of electors; I have no scruples on this occasion, as that second-class vote was given by the returning officer, and I now confess openly that I fail utterly to detect in La France the exquisite perfume that most others note. Well, I suppose it is my loss, but I certainly did not calculate that I should be the only person to place that Rose in the second class. By the twenty electors, with only twenty-five Roses named, the Roses named in this election amount to 154. This is startling enough; but amongst the twelve best, ninety-two Roses actually find a place. Yet again another curiosity: Out of the 154 Roses mentioned, no less than seventy-seven- exacyly one-half- have only a solitary vote, and of these seventy-seven no less than thirty-four, though named only once, are yet considered by the nominator A1, or amongst the best twelve, showing at least that there is as great a difference in noses as in eyes, having only one vote. All the electors are nominators of Roses. I may here mention the electors who have assisted at this election by sending in lists. They are Sir William Bagge; Revs. A. Cheales, J. B. Camm, E. Handley; Messrs. Baker, R. W. Beachey, H. Bennet, Blandford, Cooling, Cranston, Curtis, Davis, J. Ellis, Harrison, Hinton, G. Prince, Robsonm Scott, Turner, and Wheeler; and to these gentlemen, and in fact to all who have in any way tended to make these elections either useful or interesting, I tender my sincere thanks. Mr. R. W. Beachey's list and that of Mr. Curtis I append; they are both very interesting. The Roses in italics are those in the best twelve. — Joseph Hinton, Warminster.