Greg and Joan, I'm looking forward to more pics from you two! Golden Pagoda is intriguing. You don't see that one much, and I bet it gets very prominent points in the Houston heat. Joan, maybe you hire a little crew of teenagers every Spring Break to help you out with those 200 trees! Can't wait to see the blooms that are developing here, and you bet I'll post when I get a chance. Robert, that Lemon Drop is Thornton's and one of only a few big ones I have. It's certainly the "branchiest". That's what you can look forward to in a few more years! Bill, our little guy gets us invited back to a lot of places! We would all love to go back to CA soon. Will definitely let you know if we get a chance. K, glad the seeds are coming up for you; they're the perfect flowers for a Texas drought! Yes, that is TLD on the tree because my memory is just THAT bad, lol. Sometimes I abbreviate and then ask myself, "Now what the heck does that stand for again?" Dave, thanks for the compliments! I'm in Austin. We're 8b but I've seen at least one big plumeria tree kept in the ground all winter in my neighborhood. It can be done in a sheltered spot with frost cloth since our freezes are all short-lived. Mike, I found another possible oh-please-let-it-be inflo today, so I feel like I won the lottery! Hope you also have a great bloom year!

Hey francy, I'm using EK paint in the trim formulation--the ICI Dulux Lifemaster 9200 (see link below), mixed with a tad bit of Floetrol. The paint mostly levels out (DH says it does completely--he's amazed how easy it was for me to get a good finish on melamine), in fact I'd say it's more uniform than the other surfaces I've done with a brush (it occurs to me that I hadn't used floetrol in the other trim I painted--Devine trim paint), but there is a bit of a texture, just an imperceptible bit. But it's all over, not linear. I really like the look of it, but you might not. I think Michael had said to go over it with a brush if you want to get rid of the "stipple", but I would rather leave it as it is--the risk is greater for me than the potential reward. Maybe trying Floetrol will give you greater control, longer workability and leveling than you have now? Just a possibility. When I first tried it I poured out a little paint into a yogurt container and mixed a tiny amount of floetrol into it, just to see what I thought of the different consistencies/workabilities. I much prefer life with Floetrol now. :) AND life with the Jumbo-Koter.

We live in Central Indiana and have a home in Southern Indiana. We have had so much rain. Over the Easter weekend we had so much flooding in the south. Our home is located outside of French Lick, Indiana. The business part of town was so badly flooded. Our home out of town sits up on a hill. The neighbor man said we had 2 cars parked up in our drive and the water was up to the windows. The water was up to within 6 inches of the bottom of the stop sign at the corner. We have never seen water this high before. My hubby went down later on in the week and it still looked like a lake across the road. We have had more then enough rain...

Oh geeze. Thanks for the kind words. Very much appreciated but not necessary. :) Garden Web is my occasional mental vacation/distraction from a hectic real life. As much as I love color, it's nice to come here and read about other stuff.