Our perspectives are going to be different, I think, but with an eye toward the future ..... First plant: Shorten the big stub on the right (in the pic) and don't let any branches grow from it. You want it to die back to the trunk. Leave it on until the tree begins to grow a collar around the stub, then cut it off just outside the branch collar. This reduces scarring & the wound will heal quickly. The other stub growing between the two main branches toward the top should be reduced now so the bottom of the 'Y' formed by the co-dominant leaders is rounded at the bottom & the 'stub' look is gone. You need to decide how much taller you want the tree to be. Reduce both of the co-dominant leaders to 2 apparent nodes if you don't want the tree much taller, and completely eliminate one of the co-dominant leaders if you want the tree to grow much taller. After that, I wouldn't do any more pruning until next spring. Second tree: Treat the branch growing off to the right as a sacrifice branch - it will come off before it starts to form a collar around the trunk. The future leader of your tree is the little branch just above that sacrifice branch, so when it gets a little harder, use a string to tie it to the trunk so it's growing vertically. Next spring, you'll remove the sacrifice branch and prune the trunk off just above the leader you tied up. Got it? That's just how you were going to do it - wasn't it? ;-) Al

I talked to my husband when he got home from work last night. We're not using any of those bags of soil. We're using all native soil. We've also decided to plant these trees over 2 days. He works second shift so we don't have all day to do it. He's just going to dig a hole in a part of our yard and then when he's done with it will fill it with some topsoil or something. Funny that someone brought up a tiller. We already tried that idea. Well, sort of. We tried to rent one from Home Depot earlier this week, and they said we couldn't rent it yet because it's too muddy outside and they don't want any mud getting on the machine. We told the guy we would never return the machine with any mud on it but he insisted no one can rent the tiller yet. If all we were doing was planting trees it would be one thing but once we plant we are committed to putting up vole fencing around it. We've already got all the poles put up. Where we are planting we can see vole trails everywhere. Not to mention we also have to stake these trees (I stake every tree I plant for 2 seasons) because they are going to be in the prevailing wind section of our yard. The trunks and branches on these 2 foot European Hornbeam fastigiatas are so tiny! They look like they could snap right off. I smiled to myself this morning when I re-read my original post. I was completely panicked when I wrote it. I'm calm about it now. We're planting half today and staking and fencing them, and then the other half tomorrow on his day off. It'll be fine. I see people on videos all the time dig a hole to plant a tree and put the dirt back in and have enough to backfill, but we never do. And we put every bit of dirt we dig out of the hole on a tarp so as not to lose any of it but we still don't have enough.

Well...I appreciate all your responses, and I'm going to assume it's a common garter snake...for my OWN peace of mind...LOL I believe he was so grumpy because of the flash from the camera...it probably scared the bejeezus out of'm. Plus...I'm wondering if it isn't the onset of hibernation time. I mean, afterall, he WAS way down under some pretty hard, clay covered by about 4" of mulch. He was probably sleeping...or getting his last full meal of night crawlers when I uncovered him. *I'm in SE PA, not Florida at the moment. He's gone now and I don't know where...hehehe...but I covered the hole back up with the mulch. BTW: When I let Picture it! automatically tweak the color and brightness levels, the colors of the snake were changed a bit. Here are two pics showing actual color...

It is too early to be sure about Id but the Patriot you refer to seems too dark on the edges. The one I just bought has a creamier edge from the get go. I'm not implying yours is not a Patriot, merely making an observation. Providing a pic for comparison. Sorry, no guess for the other two. :(