Hey Steve, that's exciting! I used to grow a poinsettia called Lilo. She was just beautiful, but challenged your skills as a grower. If you were a good one, that variety was really hard to beat. Certainly not your run-of-the-mill offering. But if you didn't treat her right, then she surely let you know it. What do I look like? LOLOL. Tibs, I'm sorry you are having such an invasion of those nasty, horrid, icky, destructive insects. This has been one of my lightest years ever for infestations, but I have seen them on nursery stock in town and heard a lot of people complaining this year. They have even left my grape vines and roses alone! I have two ampelopsis however, a relative of the grape, and one of them looks like lace. I think nature's system of checks and balances has given us a payback for our stewardship of the land. We have a family of catbirds constantly working the grounds and they are one of the birds who will eat adult JPs. I noticed the female stuffing bugs into the mouth of a juvenile cowbird. LOL. IOW they had offspring with insatiable appetites. Also each spring our resident skunk families do a job on our turf, much to my dh's chagrin. They mine the soil for JP grubs. It looks terrible after they have ripped up the sod, but they do it quite adroitly, and lift it up in sheets. rofl. Before the spring rains, we just lay the sheets of sod back down and they grow again, sans grubs. Year after year of this and our grub population is well checked and we don't have people's lawns nearby to re-infest us with their adults.

I own a Vermont castings Intrepid II, and I think this particular model is poorly designed, although the construction is high quality. I'm not saying this is true of all VC stoves, just mine. Last time I tried to get customer support from the manufacturer, they were useless. The downturn in customer support occured around the time they were bought out by a company in Canada. I don't own an outside wood boiler, but there is one about a mile away from me, and I'm glad it's not closer. The smoke from it is awful. I assume the owner fills it full of wood once a day and then turns down the air intake to get a long burn time. If I ever buy another stove, it will be a high efficiency non catalyst model without a top opening, but with a side door. It would be nice if it could burn wood or coal too.

It will look a bit deadish if you reach in a cut a few branches right back to the main trunk, but if you shake out/trim off the dead twigs and needles in there it will look airier and you will see the structure along the lines of the big tree. Start at the back of your shrubs and see if the effect is what you like. Once you have some light and space in the thing, you should be prepared to see more trunk and stems, since each branch is not all lined with fresh needles in there. Jaro is right that what you are likely to see is that each branch will in turn branch several times, and that is what makes them dense. To get the look you want (or think you want :-)) you basically need to correct that excessive branching and restore the single main branch to a semblance of straightness with no offshoots. It's not easy and it might not in fact look that great as the branches will be crooked at best. It's a risk, if you value fitting in with the neighbours. I have an unpruned Hicks yew that is about 10 years old and it mostly has long, unbranched but fairly upright branches. But the branches get bare with age, whether they are inside a meatball or exposed. I wonder if you should instead think about keeping them sheared but in a different shape; a plinth or a chess piece or something. (OK that might be a little advanced). But get yourself a book on topiary and see what the practice looks like when taken to the level of art. I actually really like it, but rarely have the heart to snip a branch. I also really enjoy the shapes that people come up with who have the space for them; we don't just have meatballs around here but all sorts of swoopy mushrooms and whoopee cushions and such. One thing you should know is that yews are very forgiving. If you decide you hate the result of your pruning, just cut back the branch in question again and it should resprout in the following year. KarinL

10-22-21 With our night temps going down into the mid to high 20'sf and finding the pots on the grow table frozen solid in the morning, it was time to put things down in the cold frame. It wasn't the cold I was concerned about as much as the pots thawing every day with sunny, highs in the 50's. ///////////// This most likely will be my last year propagating plants. It's takes quite a bit of my time and with DW retired now too, we want to be free to follow our whims at various times of the year. Life is short. It's been nine years since we moved into this place with an empty yard and we've populated it with plants pretty much the way we had envisioned. And I'm getting too old to be starting everything from seed or cuttings. If I do any more plantings, it will be a few sizable purchased plants but tbh, I've accomplished my interests and ambitions to what can be done here in my zone. Time to move on to the next big thing. ;-) I want to thank all the good people here for all the help and information given. It's been one of the most interesting, successful and enjoyable ventures of my life. I am blessed. ///////////// I had to expand the cold frame this summer, expecting success of many cuttings which did not come to fruition. But with receiving replacement plants and purchases made too late to plant in the ground, I still ran a little short on room and have 4 pots that will have to survive in the garage this winter. :-) This is what things looked like earlier today before the lid(s) were closed (more deciduous plants this time than previous years). Lid closed, mulch bags and 6"x6" wood with 1-1/2" foam board. I don't think I'll worry about raking leaves this time). Pots in the garage. At least there shouldn't be the dreaded 'freeze/thaw' problems there would be sitting outside with sun exposure. We'll try it anyways, it's all zone hardy stuff that's no big loss. ;-)