Marian - the paper size is 11"x17" for the course but I gather in 'real life' it would be at least 24"x36" or bigger... Mary - I have noticed the ads for the English Gardening School in the RHS magazine. And there are the RHS courses too... I guess one advantage of the U of G courses is you can just take the courses that interest you and they can count towards a certificate/diploma or not, as you like. So there no feeling that you didn't complete a program if you want to stop after just one course. The Internet format was ideal for me; it's just that the course content wasn't quite what I was looking for. I'll have to look around at options and then see whether I'm still in the mood to do something more once the gardening season is over for this year. Saucy - The reference to the clematises is in the verbal description of the plan. You need the plant list key to find them on the drawing (and the drawing posted here is too small to read the numbers anyway! :-) GB - I was going to consult with you about what ones to use but ran out of time and just named ones I was familiar with! The transparent house was interesting. I had to 'build' it from scratch with only the floor plan outline, the height of the walls as provided by the teacher, and the fact that there was a 2' roof overhang! It's not quite right I think on the back part of the house but good enough for the purpose of the assignment. The whole isometric drawing thing is actually quite simple to do - if a bit fiddly and tedious! You follow a straightforward process using fairly crude shapes for the plants (drawn to scale based on mature height and spread) and, when you put it all together, it produces that rather astonishing drawing - with zippo artistic talent required on my part! Since it was all done at a scale of 1/8" = 1' small details were killers to work with. It took me two days to draw that table and tuteur! Rotating things 30 degrees when they're that small and have so many lines (all those chair legs etc.!) is hard on the eyes... And since the technique produces a 3-D effect, I kept losing track of what was bottom and what was top as the little image seemed to have a life of its own and 'morphed' a lot :-) And tilting everything at 30 degrees started to 'get' to me - when I was reading something after working on the drawings for a while, the text of what I was reading seemed to be on a slant! But it was mostly fun - and good mental exercise :-) But now it's time to mess around in the real garden! I do hope to get out and measure things next week and do a proper scale drawing of the front garden and the changes I want to make there. (I suspect I may end up just 'winging it' as usual if spring gets underway quickly sometime soon and I run out of planning time....:-)

Jen, he only had white and yellow left, he just sold the hot pink tree. He had Daisy Wilcox, ruby two and the other names I do not remember, since I was looking for hot pink and reds. I was not interested in white or yellow. He has at least 50 large plumeria trees in his yard. Its like a plumeria forest. He was getting ready for the plumeria society plant sale when I was there, he had an area with nothing but 1 and 2 gallon plumeira plants that he had removed from his greenhouse. I think the sale was in April. I went because we traded cuttings. He wanted Magnum Opus and Siam Ruby, and I got Embers, and was suppost to get California Sally, but he could not find his main plant, he could just find the small plants, so i settled for Thorntons Madi Gras( is it diffrent than Madi Gras? I also bought 3 other cuttings, but I can't remember what I bought. I did buy one plant a Thorntons Lemon drop. The plant was $25, and the cuttings were $10. Both men are in their late 70's, and truly love plumeria. I could listen to them for hours. I hope one weekend you can come down with me, and we will drive to Corpus so you can meet them. They take care of the plumeria trees at the Corpus Christi Botantical Gardens. I wish I would start to feel better, I spend most of my day sleeping. Barbra

Well, here it is March 25 and I have "bragged" (excitedly) about this project all the while we have been travelling the I 5 corridor here in Oregon. Think I may have recruited a couple of friends to look us up. Did Alisande decide to give up because of so few participating? (We left home March 9 and have not always had a WiFI connection or many down days) I have really found that writing (also journaling which I have done sporatically) just takes me to places and memories I have not expeced. That must be the Catharism" that folks talk about....facinating details of long forgotten events. Mind blowing at times. When we were in Alaska two years ago, the community of Palmer just " spoke" to me, I wanted to stay or return or delve into the background of the place. It was one of President FDR's programs to "grow and populate" the wilderness and I was completly hooked. So, in my writing I was so very surprised to find that I too was part of one of his "programs" to better the lives of such ordinary people who were right off the farms of the mid=west, willing to work and educate their children. I knew where I had been....but I didn't KNOW what it had been. Quite astonishing, really. So Thank you, Susan! And, I haven't even begun to explore those events in history that I have been so very close to and thought that I would just write those down so my kids would remember them thru my eyes. We will see, as I do plan to continue writing. Thank you again Nanny PS forgive the typos...love my mac, but the keyboard is just not compatible to me and my long fingernails, I think.

NaviJen, pleased to see you posting with us. Mass. is a whole different style of housing than what I'm used to in Alabama. Like lower ceilings, big basements, storm windows, dormers, angled ceilings upstairs. And I've been surprised at the absence of air conditioning (a necessity built into every home in south Alabama), and the intrusive nature of many heating systems--including radiators, baseboard heaters, boilers and oil tanks! Those things take up a lot of space and money to operate also. As older folks who married almost four years ago (second spouses), my DH has a home up there, and I have one down here. That's why I sometimes do a flip-flop from north to south, you will notice. I've been redoing his house AND mine. Jen, be sure to hang in there with us, a lot of creative ideas come from this group of folks. And Steph, you are so unique, giving your boy his own bedroom!!! I'm thinking you need to get out more? hehehehe Having huge antique furniture can be a drawback in a smaller home. Of course, ONE PIECE could fit, maybe, if it is a featured piece. Something that WORKS FOR ITS KEEP. I do hope you have room for the things you've STORED FOR 14 YEARS?!! At least, put it in place and see if it leaves enough breathing room. After all this time, you may have fantasized it into something it can never be, and you've grown out of it....so to speak. Dreams are hard to give up. If I had a good spot to put it, I'd be looking for a nice armoire...just because I like those. But I realize it won't fit my house or my lifestyle any more.