Thanks, everyone! Jazzmom -- Here are my own roots, all of the others on the first list were grafted. did NOT survive Raspberry Cream Twirl Climber (really surprising since it had almost no winter die back the previous year) Nicola Parade mini Promise Natasha Monet DID make it :) Denali (weak) Steppin' Out (weak) Memoriam Pope John Paul II Candyland mini pink Kordana Baby Paradise Cupcake Cafe Ole Green/White Victory grocery store potted rose Lagerfeld Peppermint Parfait Hot pink kordana mini multiple pink grocery store minis Vulcano Kordana mini Smile Kordana mini Irish Cream (tiny band from Burlington that survived in ground, very surprised!!) Rainbow (weak) Grimaldi Henri Matisse Dick Clark Julio Iglesias (weak) Headliner Pop Warner Harry Wheatcroft (weak) Michelangelo the Painter Strawberry Ice Mexicana (weak) Gene Boerner (weak)

To repeat what has been said a number of times before, there are Red Maples (Acer rubrum) in varying cultivars and then there are other cultivars of maples whose leaves turn red in the fall. There are also maples, mostly Japanese maples but other species as well, whose leaves come in red or reddish, some of whose leaves stay red and some turn green. The TRUE Red Maple is the A. rubrum, so called, as far as I know, because the flowers, which are very early before the leaves, are very red, as are the early stages of the samaras. Any other tree, if of another variety of maple (Norway, silver, etc.) MAY have the word red somewhere in its name, or have red leaves all summer or in the fall, but it will NOT BE a Red Maple, although it may be a red-colored maple, for example, the above mentioned Crimson King Norway Maple. Sorry for the lecture, but it's a pet peeve, and so you got the rant....

I have several Black Walnuts and many thriving Spruce, both White Spruce and Norway Spruce. One is growing directly under a huge Walnut. Red bud is supposed to be juglone tolerant and mine are doing well so far. All evidence is questionable. If you search this site using juglone as your search word, you will find that some people can grow one thing and someone else can't. I've gotten so I blame every failure on the Walnuts, but if I get a grip and ask myself: "What else could be causing this?" I almost always find an alternate explanation. I don't think the Walnuts blanket an area in poison and stop everything from growing. It seems more hit and miss. I do have one narrow band, about 18" wide, which must follow the path of a root. I call it the valley of death.

Thanks Pam, and yes, I've already run into the problem with the white tags. In the past, I have used copper tubing with a P-touch label on it and that works great. Last fall, I had all these hostas potted up and was moving. I found those plastic labels on sale at Home Depot and bought several dozen of them. I used indelible Magic Marker to mark them. This was a temporary measure to get me through the move and the winter. Over the winter, the marker disappeared from some tags, and many other tags became brittle and broke off. Some even got moved away from the original pot. As a result, that center bed that you mentioned is the "Bed of the Unknown Hosta". There are a few in there that were at the new house... unmarked of course. The rest are ones with broken, blank, or missing plastic tags. I've identified a couple of them since planting, just by process of elimination, but some might never get identified. It's really sad. I would never EVER buy those plastic tags again and would never recommend them to anyone. All of these hostas will get marked with GOOD LONG LASTING markers before snow flies!