judyny6, Was this the first winter for the nigra? If so it may have only been topkilled and you may get new growth in the spring. ...just a thought You should be able to get Fargesia robusta to 10'+ in a few years. Although, check with who you're purchasing it from. The 'Green Screen' variety is a tissue culture plant and some of these have growers that won't allow it to be divided and given away. If you go with one of the more cold hardy Phyllostachys, you could always top the culms to the desired height. Also, do some research on flowering so you know what to expect if this would happen with what you plant. Rick

Check out Donahue clematis list for clems for shade. I have right now more than 20 clems blooming in my part shade garden- it is not full shade, only mushrooms probably will grow in full shade ;) Anyway, many clems will do very well in part shade, some might give slightly less show than in sunnier position but for me any bloom counts.

>>I wonder If I graft the japanese maple onto a regular hardy maple in my climate?Grafting I'll use the example of roses here. Just like japanese maples, most roses are not hardy to zones 4 and lower. The are zone 5 and up. Hybrid tea for instance are not hardy but they are grafted onto hardy roots. Unfortuntely, this doesn't make them hardy in zone 4 and down, we have to protect them heavily so they will come back the year after and even then you run the risk of loosing them. Not because the root system is in danger but because the grafted part is. But even if you loose the grafted part during the winter, you still may have roses that will emerge from the root stock, below the grafting point. Of course, they wont be the same hybrid tea that you bought since that part died, but a hardy rose from the plant on which it was grafted. I would say the same rules would apply to japanese maples grafted onto hardy maple roots. You probably know the Explorer Serie roses. These roses are hybrids but are not grafted, they use their own roots to grow from and they are hardy to zone 3 and some to zone 2. I have 5 of them doing very well and they never needed any kind of winter protection and I never even thought about giving them any either (zone 4b QC, Canada). Why is this? The crosses were made between hardy species and/or cultivar from the the start and the breeding was done not to impart hardiness in the first place but to develop other caracteristics such as colors, trailing habits, short plants, diseases resistantce, etc. They probably used less hardy roses in their breeding program to bring in some new genes unvailable otherwise. Hybridizing If you cross two zone 5 plants like two acer palmatum, you'll end up with a bunch of other zone 5 plants. But if you cross a zone 2 plant with a zone 4 plant, you will probably end up with 80% of the plants hardy to zone 3, 10% hardy to zone 4 and 10% hardy to zone 2. Then if you take one of these new zone 3 hardy plant, roses for example and cross it back with a zone 2 rose, you may end up with a 50% zone 3 and 50% zone 2 stock. And if you cross back again one of these new zone 3 rose with a zone 2 rose, you may end up with a 75% zone 2 - 25% zone 3 ratio. These same rules would also apply to maples making crosses between 2 different species, one of them being the japanese maple for the first cross. The difference is here: in the example of roses I took, the desirable plant and the one used in every cross was a zone 2 and the goal was to bring a zone 4 plant to zone 2. With every cross I did I added some zone 2 hardiness to the gene pool. With the japanese maple, we would be working against the odds, the desirable plant and the one that should be used in every cross is a zone 5 plant and that would bring a zone 3 plant to a zone 5 only. And if I added more and more zone 3 maple, I would be loosing more and more of the japanese gene pool. Either way leads you away from the wanted result. And we haven't even said a word about what could be recessive of dominant in these crosses, which is also a very important factor to keep in mind. This can be observed in the new clematis hybrids that are reaching the market these years. Old clematis were hardy in zone 4, but crossing them to warmer growing one has yielded many new very desirable hybrids, but only hardy in zone 5, 6 or even 7. We have gained in beauty but lost in hardiness. In a word I don't think grafting would be successfull in the way you would want it to be. And breeding wouldn't work quite the way you would want either from what I understand from what you said. These are two of the reasons why I said that selection was a much better approach in your case. It is not an easier or shorter one way to do, only a safer one. Hope this helps!

Yes the white Cauliflower head does need to be protected or they will brown in the sun. I ordered some Cheddar cauliflower from Johnny's this year and the head is orange and does not require the blanching. The DTMs listed for veggies that are typically transplanted like Broccoli and Cauliflower are from transplant. Peter - Sarah's Choice has fairly short vines compared to pumpkins and watermelons that I have grown....maybe 10' max. I'm going to plant 3 hills in a 4x8 bed and they will probably spill out into the paths a little. The first time I planted them I put 5 seeds in a 3x3 bed and got about 15 nice melons and the critters got a few to boot. Put some on your list for next year!