Zu - that is a GREAT idea about the waste baskets & gopher-proofing a rose! My mom keeps on losing her roses due to gophers (and she digs them up before they wake up from the winter.... patience is not her forte'). I'll have to tell her that!!
Chelle - Isn't it wonderful when you can find someone who listens & doesn't just go "by the book"? I was looking for a perfect purple for my house trim and could NOT find one. I went to 5 different stores looking at paint samples, about 10 different websites... the closest I could find was actually some nail polish! So I took it to my local HD & the paint lady was REALLY super cool about trying to match it! She couldn't get her computer to match it perfectly, so she found a sample that was close & then started to tinker with it manually. Came so close to what I wanted, it wasn't even funny! I loved it!! It took her like 30 minutes to get it just right and she had a smile on her face the entire time! It was awesome!
I saw that Costco has these big beautiful pergolas for $799. Thinking about getting one of those & putting it together. It's redwood, which would last forever & ever & ever here.
