I agree with you, Acer, that the choice is a contradiction. The Green Giant (Thuja) was the other contender when I narrowed down my choices. There were a few things that tilted the selection to cedar. One is that it is nearly impossible here in town to get an apple tree far enough away from junipers to avoid cedar-apple rust if the apple tree is susceptible -- the experts say something like a half-mile of distance is needed. There are probably several junipers in neighbors' yards just on my block alone. So one more juniper will not likely cause more trouble than the other existing dozens would. Second, I prefer native plants. If there were no resistant apple trees, I would plant the juniper anyway because the juniper is native. According to one source, it is the ONLY needleleaf evergreen native to this particular area. On the other hand, apple trees are the interloper here. As far as I know, no apples are native to Iowa, not even crabapples. So why plant an apple at all? Well, I have this stubborn conviction that every yard needs an apple tree because I grew up with one. Even tho it was out behind the garage and surrounded by tall shrubs and could only be seen when one was standing right underneath it, it impressed me enough to want an apple tree wherever I call home. "Home is where the apple tree grows." Third, along with being native is the observation that these junipers are found in native stands along with black walnuts, so they are already good friends and won't cause trouble between themselves. It's good to know that my trees will feel good with each other. Their driplines will be very close, maybe overlapping. Fourth, the juniper provides berries that birds enjoy during the winter and the thuja does not. Feeding wildlife is an important consideration to me. No, I have not heard of cedar-needle pie either! Haha. I'll have to work on that one -- what a challenge! But I think one can make gin from the berries. I wonder how the berries would flavor citrus-based confections like lemon pudding? Fifth was the growth rate. I think the juniper grows a bit faster than the Thuja. I can certainly afford a bigger juniper to start with because a close friend has a farm full of junipers -- he admires the tree -- and he'll dig one up to transplant. It'll be like a family connection through the tree. So I might have a useful screen in only a few years to block a neighboring apartment house window that looks down into my big patio window, which I like to keep uncurtained. When it's all added up, I am simply very happy that my stubborn, contradictory convictions can be satisfied with a really promising solution like a disease-resistant tree.

I presently grow 6 different 'resistant' varieties and a pair of non-resistant trees. At first I thought that the resistant trees were a great idea. Then I found out that scab is only one (but very significant) problem that apples will have here in my Illinois location. The disappointment I have is that 4 out of the 6 have very similar flavors. I can't tell the difference between Williams' Pride, Redfree, Liberty and Nova Easygro. They are sort of 'me too' in flavor. I would say they were not outstanding. The two that are different are the Pristine and the Enterprise. Pristine is yellow and has a better flavor. It is so early that it is easy to be fooled as to the proper time to harvest. A little late and I get soft, easily bruised fruit. Enterprise is the opposite end of the season. It is a good keeping apple that improves with a bit of refrigeration. The other 4 'resistant' varieties are pretty much interchangeable to me. This is not what I was aiming at when I chose them. I wanted a variety of flavors and textures and acid levels and sweetness. Don't get me wrong, they definitely are scab resistant. They almost never show any signs of it, even when conditions are favorable, and they are usually favorable here in the Midwest. I much prefer the two 'non-resistant' apples that I have. They have very good flavors and I can tell them apart blindfolded. My experience may be unique, but please consider the 'non-resistant' varieties too. The extra effort may be worth it.

Thanks, all, for your comments. I keep looking at different nursery websites, and keep finding MORE kinds that sound interesting. The first list came from Raintree and Stark's. I wish I had room for 50 trees, but I'll have to narrow it down a bit. Funny story, though, about 'Pristine' -- I actually had a small tree of this variety about 6 or 7 years ago. It had been in the ground about 18 months and was doing well. I had it near, but not directly under, some power lines. One day, I had the dog out in the yard, and a mourning dove perched on the power lines. When the dog saw a bird or squirrel in a tree, he used to get mad and bite the tree trunk. Well, this time, he bit into and broke off the entire tree! End of Pristine apple. I have a different dog now, that one died of cancer a couple of years ago, and this one doesn't blame the tree for not being able to reach the squirrel.

I have grown Tatume here a couple of times. While it outcompetes squash bugs, the squash vine borers still can kill it in a year when they are really bad. I don't grow it any more because we liked the flavor/texture of Seminole harvested young (baseball to softball-sized) better than Tatume. It is a huge space hog too, and because I already grow 6-10 kinds of C. moschatas most years, the last thing I need is a space hog that isn't as tasty as they are. Bon, I couldn't help noticing how many of my favorite Texas horticulturalists (Sam Cotner, Malcom Beck, Howard Garrett) were in Howard Garrett's story about Malcom's pumpkin. (Mr. Garrett and Mr. Beck write extensively on organic gardening and all their books are excellent, and Mr. Cotner wrote THE book on growing Vegetables in Texas. I've worn out 3 copies of it and am on my 4th.) Jay White, by the way, writes regularly for Texas Gardener magazine (as does Greg Grant) and their articles and columns are the first ones I read when a new magazine arrives. It is a well-known and well-understood phenomenon that healthy plants grown in healthy soil are more disease tolerant and more pest tolerant than less healthy plants. When pests relentlessly attack plants, I try to figure out what it is about those specific plants that make them less healthy and, therefore, more alluring to pests and to diseases. Sometimes it is obvious to me because the plants under attack are growing in less healthy soil. Sometimes it is something much more subtle---like cool-season plants that are beginning to be subjected to hotter temperatures than they like. Howard Garrett makes a convincing argument for us to grow our brassicas in the fall only in this part of the country because they have less pests since they are less stressed in cooler conditions---and I believe he is right about that. And, there are some pests, like grasshoppers, that relentlessly attack everything still green in the hot summer months, whether the plants are healthy and happy are not. So, for every "rule" that we observe, their is an exception, and I find grasshoppers to be one of the exceptions to the rule that healthy plants in healthy soil are not attacked by pests and diseases. I grew up eating yellow summer squash for as far back as I can remember and nothing I've ever grown as a more pest-tolerant substitute for it is 100% acceptable. When I want yellow squash, I simply want yellow squash---nothing else will do. So, in order to have it, I just grow it in low tunnel rows under row cover and hand-pollinate it. I feel like I don't have to settle for less in my own garden, and growing Tatume instead of the yellow squash I really want is, indeed, settling for less. You'll never know how you feel about Tatume until you grow it yourself. I just wasn't crazy about the flavor and didn't find it to be a really heavy producer either. To be fair to Tatume, it never will look like a heavy producer when it is grown adjacent to Seminole because Seminole outproduces it (and everything else) every single time. There is a reason Seminole is a perennial fave in our garden----it is beaten everything else for about 15 years now, and that track record is hard to break. It has been around forever....I can remember it being on seed racks in Texas when I was a child, although I think then it likely was sold as Calabacita, because that is the name that pops into my head every time I see a packet of the seeds. For squash vine borer tolerance or resistance, as George noted, C. moschatas will win every time and, for me, the C. agyrospermas like White Cushaw, Green-Striped Cushaw and Orange-Striped Cushaw are in second place. Tatume might come in third, or actually, a distant fourth behind every kind of yellow summer squash that exists when grown under row cover. YMMV. You can grow any squash or pumpkin you want if only you'll grow them under summerweight row cover, tulle netting, mosquito netting, etc. and hand-pollinate. Does it take longer and a bit more effort? Sure it does, but it is worth it to avoid the heartbreak of losing plants to the dastardly SVBs. Dawn