Look around you and don't worry so much. Ma Nature has been planting the planet for a few million years. Last time I looked, the only area that didn't have something growing was where I'd ripped out all the weeds. Whatever you planted, enjoy what grows. Learn what it is and go from there. It's all about learning what works best for you and your little bit of earth. If you're determined to control it, you'll be disappointed. There are no garden mistakes, only learning opportunities. Who says what you did is wrong? It might only be wrong for where you are and what sort of growing conditions you have. Chances are Wal-Mart employees aren't the best at garden recommendations. If you have questions, it's best to ask folks who garden rather than folks who work in retail. You'll probably get more reasonable answers from folks who get their hands in dirt on a regular basis. I'm no botanist but in my experience, seeds need three things to germinate: moisture, light and temperature. If the growing medium (that's the dirt) is fertile and they have sufficient light exposure & rain, the seeds should germinate. If you're looking for an easy way to grow from seed, I suggest you head on over to the winter sowing forum and give it a try. It's nearly fool-proof and the results are astonishing.

Thank you everybody for sharing my excitement!!! This is just crazy...and bestlawn, I love your idea, how thoughtful is that? Another shock for her system~ I love it!!! Just a little background on my family. Our parents both died within several years of each other, in 1987-1990. I think the three of us were so devestated, that we all just kept on with our lives. Nobody really spoke about it. There are three of us. I am the middle kid.We live in three different states. Oregon, Washington, and me in Texas. I noticed that my brother and sister just were not talking, and had not for years. Some stupid personal tiff that neither wanted to back down on. Something stupid from the 70's. Ok, so here it is guys....mom and dad are dead, are we really going to not talk to each other for the rest of our lives? I am not going to let this happen. My lifes goal, if I did nothing else, would to get my brother and sister back together again. Whatever it took. I kid you not, I spent years sending them pictures of each other, and keeping each other up on their personal lives. I was determined as hell, and nothing worked. Then, sis was diagnosed with breast cancer. I had a hint of them getting back together again. This situation screamed we would not live for ever, and you two knock it off!! They finally called each other, and my heart is at peace. It just took for one of us to have a brush with death to get everybody there. I know I have gone on too long about this, so I will keep it short, but, sister is coming to see me, and we will be calling brother when she gets here. What ever I can do to keep our family the way it was meant to be, I will do. This Texas trip is a huge, and, I do mean a huge, step in that direction. I will spoil sister with ever ounce of energy I have in me. This trip is an icon for us kids. Trin

I'm with Mad Gallica - you may always be wrestling with the weight of that rose, and I'd hate to see it damage your house. You might look into a freestanding arch to let it climb over, which means you can possibly contain the monster without having to cut all the canes back. If you want to reduce bloodshed and hassle, by all means it shouldn't hurt the rose, but you may not get much bloom in the next spring as a result. Michael is quite right (of course) that we aim under normal conditions to cut no more than 1/3 of the canes in a given year, and not to prune the main canes of a climber much at all, but stretch the canes sideways on the support. Obviously you're not dealing with normal circumstances however. My experiences with a freestanding Quadra may help you envision what you want from this rose. Quadra is another monster growing, very thorny climber that is hardy in our zone 5 (and beyond). I was lazy about setting up support in its first couple of years, so mine grew into the very wide bushy shrub like yours appears to be. I finally wrestled an 8' metal arch on top of Quadra and attached all the branches I could to one of the side panels without being too systematic (this took several hours and thick gloves and clothing, so brace yourself). You'll still need something to anchor the arch to the house, or the whole thing will tip over in the wind, wrecking that work tidying. However, now that I've done that work, I don't ever have to wade into Quadra to prune it other than clearing out the dead wood (if any) and encouraging new canes to fit into one side or the other of the arch. After a couple of years, it looks more like a traditional climber, once I pulled new canes to the sides, though there still are canes in the middle that fill in with blooms. Your New Dawn looks like my Quadra did when freestanding, so it's likely to work if you're game, and you can get it tidied up now. Of course, the severe pruning will save you bloodshed now if you want to go that route, but I'd still recommend something like this as you think about supports. Here's what Quadra looked like when I first wrestled it into the arch. You can't see, but it's anchored into the brick corner behind the arch with some supports my husband drilled into the brick. You can see on the left the green velcro-type strips I use to secure it to the arch in strategic places. These are available in most garden or hardware stores. I don't have a good "before" picture, but mine looked a lot like yours when I started. Good for you to be willing to work with this rose rather than just getting rid of it (not an easy prospect either). We're happy to help with ideas. Cynthia

WOW! Thank you everyone for the great feedback. I was thinking I would just get one or two additional set of eyes on my plans, but this has been great. Let me do my best to address some of the call outs. Consensus seems to be that we review the W/D location, the MBA layout, and the stairs. As far as the laundry room, I completely hear each of your concerns. The walk will be pretty far, but at least one good thing is that we only have to do laundry once a week. I will talk it over with the SO to see if a closer placement would fly. In terms of the MBA layout, I too feel it seems a little big, so we will continue to work with the architect on that room. Regarding the stairs, we couldn't agree with each of you more. Regardless if my in-laws live with us or not, I just do not like 1/2 steps in a house period. We are now working with the architect to see how we can get those garages level and eliminate the stairs. cpartist - your comment on the extra door entrance to the master closet is really intriguing. Especially if we move the entrance to the whole Master area to make it all enclosed. We will definitely keep that in mind. bpathome - It is hard to tell from the plans, but the seat in the master shower has a handheld shower head located there for the frequent ritual we call shaving the beast :) So it will definitely be put to good use. mrspete - you read our minds when it comes to the ceiling height of the kitchen. We have noodled putting in faux beams in the great room, but we really aren't sure if it would look good to run them through into the kitchen. We have talked about dropping the kitchen sink at least 18" in order to set it apart from the other rooms as well as not make the cabinets seem like they are floating right in the middle of the wall. More to come on that decision. lakeviewgirl - thank you for the call out on the DW location. We will have that switched with the trash since we will like be using that right side of the oven as our likely main prep area. I actually like the look of the garages on either side and like cpartist says, they are also very common where we are building and do create a neat courtyard look. Here is what the front elevation looks like: Here is a house that I think ours will look similar to (just flipped): In terms of the closet location through the bathroom, we were the ones that asked for the design to be this way. Like nini804 calls out, we have always wanted the closets to be a little more secluded as we both travel for work at least once a month and have to get up @ 4am just to get to the airport. That way as long as the person can "ninja" it out of bed, the other can continue to sleep hopefully. chisue - I also don't understand the "via a toilet" comment. Yes, you do walk by the toilet closet, but not through it. chisue - As far as the MBR, we currently have our headboard flanked by windows, so we have no problem with it whatsoever. Again thank you all again for the great dialogue and constructive feedback. And thank you for validating that for the most part our plans are pretty cool :) We welcome anything else you can think of. You have definitely given us a lot to think about.