I love Japanese Maples, but they will not replace a large shade tree. You should decide what you want the tree for, a specimen tree or a shade tree. pat, we have a nursery here that specializes in Japanese maples and other trees. We bought a small waterfall maple from them. I also have a red-ish purple lace leaf. Both are about 3 feet high. They had a lot of damage from last years freeze, but have come back. I'd like to get more. I want a coral bark (a neighbor of mine has one that looks fantastic all winter long) and the one with the leaves that look like painted fingernails. I can't remember the name.

Ken, your probably right. I have a lot of wind and a lot of snow. Its actually pretty harsh, because I live just over the top of a 350' ridge ... and its always quite snowy on this back side of the ridge. I'm not really a guru like many of you probably are ... but I'm trying to get away from what the masses are doing ... which is 75% austrian pine and maybe 20% blue spruce ... very boring. If I had to buy from forestfarm today, I would probably get 4 serbians (my favorite), a weeping serbian, a weeping norway and 1 or 2 hoopsi ... those are my favorites and all within my price range, but not tiny to start with. I know that probably not exotic ... but considering what I said above ... in my neighborhood, it would be a lot of variety. Do you have an opinion on the Bakeri variety of spruce ? Those also might fit my requirement for smaller size and narrower form. I'm particularly interested in those 5 gal. plants from FF ... yes, the shipping is high, but its still a lot cheaper than anything I buy locally (comperable to the hardware store). side note: do you think blue star juniper would do well for me?

Thanks for all the Mencken quotes, I would agree with many of them, if I would not know the real Mencken and his racist attitude.

I wish I had the patience, time, and yes, courage - ha! - to make black garlic, dcarch. I love trying new things, and the descriptions I've read of it sound wonderful to me (big garlic fan). Alas. DH, a bacon lover, made a horrible face and pronounced a stern 'no' when I suggested making a bourbon brown-sugar bacon ice cream this weekend. He's just not adventurous and I couldn't eat it all alone : ( I think it's fantastic how you are always trying such interesting foods (tripe, black garlic ice cream, hostas). Bravo for you - one never knows what will entice us. I did make bacon jam one year, incredibly sweet. DH put it on his steak (not for me, I don't like sweet steaks, I guess) but I found it good on crostinis. Which has nothing to do with black garlic... Edie, it's got to be hard for you, having such serious allergies. My mom was also seriously allergic to shellfish. She loved it too... her allergies hit her around her mid-50's as I recall. And yes, people get that mentality of "a little won't hurt". They don't know. amylou, I will have to agree, that's a pet-peeve of mine: When random people tell me what they don't like of something I've prepared, in a rude manner. One year I made a large holiday feast, and for one who disliked (not allergic to) onions, I told her which of the dishes had onions and which didn't (I tailored alternates for her). She ignored me, and ate Ina Garten's recipe for cream spinach. She raved. And raved. Took seconds. Then I reminded her, there are onions in that. She clattered her fork back onto my good dishes, made a horrific face, and went on for 3 minutes about how awful onions were and how much she hated them. Really?