Hi Kiger I've been in your shoes. It took a lot of work but I did find some very nice Asian Pears (all dwarfs) at 2 garden centers north of me. I purchased a Rajah and what was labeled to be a Daisui Li at Berns Garden center. I later discovered the second one was mislabeled as it bore actual pear shaped fruit. Original selling orchard (Hollybrook Orchards.com) says it couldn't be a Ya Li (only pear shaped Asian pear I can find record of) as they don't carry that variety so insist it's a European and I'm hoping to figure out which one this year. I checked back for more at Berns's this year and they had none. However I also found nice dwarf trees at Marvins Organic Gardens. Sadly they are currently closed for the season but I know when I bought my last tree there in Oct they still had a couple Hardy Giants (which I believe is another name for Olympic) plus one Hosui and a couple New Century (Shinseiki). Very nice dedicated folks, but trees a bit pricy. If you get on their mailing list sometime during the winter they offer a chance to buy gift certificates and actually send you twice the certificate you purchase. That means I bought $100 and they sent me 2 $100 certificates. So the Hardy Giant priced at $90 actually cost me $45. Other thing I want to mention is that I went to many many many well known reputable nurseries around the Cincinnati area looking for Asian Pears and was told by every single one of them (except Marvins) that Asian Pear was just a pear that bore fruit. I couldn't even get any of them to check a book to prove they were wrong. Oddly, even Berns where I actually bought 2 Asian pear trees told me the same thing. Luckily I checked their stock for myself and found the Rajah and Daisui Li there. Rajah is my favorite of the 4 varieties that have fruited for me. Hosui tastes slightly better but is a far more challenging tree to grow. (I prefer sweet over tart). Rajah has been a dream requiring minimal pruning and producing lots of yummy fruit. 20th Century I didn't care much for, but they say first couple years of fruit on young trees tend to be lower quality so I'm giving it a chance. The first 4 trees (yes, I count Daisui Li since the tree and leaves look way more Asian than European to me) were prob 4-5 feet and in 5 gallon pots. I planted in autumn and all 4 bore fruit the next year. I also put in Hardy Giant, Shinseiki, Drippin Honey and Chojuro this year but will prob only get fruit from the Hardy Giant as it is the only large one. I really hope this helps. I went nuts looking and calling a couple years back. Pam in cinti Here is a link that might be useful: Marvin's Organic Gardens

Well my son's girlfriend went into Mirror Lake despite his admonishments. Her dad's a doc, so I figure they can treat her for ---whatever. She really is such a nice girl and said it wasn't that bad. This whole town is essentially shut down. I worked this morning and got every one of my calls answered because everone wanted to bug out for the game parties. Nice! Remember that Bo was an OSU (masters I think) grad and was an assistant coach under Woody. I think it's a shame he missed the game, but now he and Woody can watch it together perhaps. Now, you may differ on the teams, but can it be argued that the OSU band is the "Best damn band in the land?" I think MI's director said the ramp entrance is the best in the country.

Go to www.avsa.org Choose vendors by state. Nancy

I just read through this long topic and in a couple of places Norway spruce was mentioned. A study was done at SUNY Syracuse a few years ago to determine the growth curves for Norway spruce in unthinned stands in New York State. They analyzed a large number of stands on a variety of soils (somewhere between 50 and 100 if I remember right). They "destructively sampled" a large number of the tallest trees and plotted their growth, taking into account the number of times the trees had been weeviled and/or had other kinds of injuries. Anyway, to reduce a long and thorough study to the bare essentials, on the best sites trees that were 4.5 feet tall at a starting point were about 115 feet tall after 50 more years. The starting point of 4.5 feet was selected because the time it takes to get to that height was affected by many unpredictable factors such as weed competition, etc. that it couldn't reasonably be factored in. I have done my own measurements on a small number of stands in MD and WV and have found some that exceed those in NY by a small margin, the best being a little over 120 feet in 50 years after the 4.5 foot height was achieved. It is my general impression that if the best strains were grown on the best soils, the growth would be somewhat better than 120 feet. Almost all the spruce stands I have found have been growing on class three forest soils, whereas class 2 soils are fairly common in this region. To explain just a bit, on a class 3 forest soil red oak will grow to 65 or 75 feet in fifty years, on a class two soil, 75 to 85 feet. So the importance of soil quality is rather great in determining the potential growth of trees. Class 1 soils are fairly rare in this region and tend to be bottomland soils suited to a limited number of species. The one thing that really struck me about these growth curves determined by the folks at SUNY Syracuse is that unlike the growth curves of virtually all other species that I have seen growing in the Eastern U.S., these growth curves were not really "curves" at all, but rather straight lines that as they left the graph at the 50 year mark were showing an undiminished rate of growth. Other growth curves show a "curve" that shows decelerating growth at that point. But, based on my own observations, the growth rate of Norway spruce does start to diminish fairly soon after the 50 year mark. I haven't seen the growth curves for redwoods and other western species, but I would assume that they use a 100 year time frame and must be something really impressive. My guess is that the best Norway spruce growing on the best soils in forest stands in the Allegheny region would eventually get somewhere close to 200 feet, about the same as in the best stands in Europe. The oldest spruce I have seen here are somewhere near 150 feet now and are growing, in one case, 6 to 10 inches per year at 100 years old (Rothkugel), and in another 12 to 20 inches per year at 73 years old (Glady), but both of these are on class 3 soils. --Spruce