Err, Burgess DID list the scientific name. I have a big mea culpa here. Blame it on my inexperience. Hairmetal, it is indeed that tree, a 'pink magnolia.' I would NEVER have considered it to have been a magnolia. If you've ever been down here we have 'real' magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) EVERYWHERE. It's Mississippi's state tree and is on their vehicle license plates, but it's just as common here (actually have no idea how common it is in Miss, presumably the same, at least the southern half of the state). So when this self-identified amateur thinks of magnolia, that and only that comes to mind. Everyone I know calls the pink magnolia a tulip tree. Granted, I am the one and only person interested in trees and gardening in my circle of acquaintances. I have even seen the proper tulip tree, and have never had cause to call it anything at all. It is DEFINITELY a tree I have no interest in planting. I have heard, though, that some butterflie's caterpillars use it as a host (food) plant. Do y'all know which butterflies, offhand? Thanks again! Jeremy

Hehe, gotta say, nearly freaked when I saw the words Bottlebrush in the name whaas. I had major flashbacks of those ridiculous plants out in california when I was a child...You see them all up and down the roads and highways. Huge red bottle brush shaped blooms on those miserable things. Ugh! I am sooo allergic to those! Alright then, done with the nightmare flashbacks. Now, I've just informed hubby those 3 trees in our back yard -must- go and sooner rather than later. He will contact a pal of his who used to log for a living. Not my thing so not my problem. His/their problem if something gets knocked into a building. LoL I leave that to him. ;) I on the other hand, asked him for his preference and have been given none. So it's up to me. Yay! I guess? Not really, if he complains later? Oh well! He lost that chance, when I asked and he said... "I don't care." I like the Swamp white oak, but I love the tulip tree. Now knowing that the tulip tree may cause issues later and the oak will live longer. I'll go with an oak. Yeah, I want more butterflies, but I'll plant an Aesculus parviflora or two, that will satisfy the butterfly wants too. :) So I have to say thank you to everyone and thank you Esh_ga & Whaas very much for directing me to several to help me make a more informed choice.

Hey Jojo!!!!! I am so happy to see you back! As for the citrus, they shut down once the root temps in pots drop below the 55 degree mark. So If I want to keep them actively growing the best possible way, I MUST keep them above those temps to continue to produce healthy rich green leaves and avoid stressing them. They will survive, but will behave very badly as all citrus do up here in my region in pots exposed to temps that cold. That is why even the nurseries here refuse to let theirs sit out when temps drop that much. Once it gets way to cold to even keep them in my greenhouse, I will bring them in with room temps hovering around 50 but never above the 60;s and they are just put on hold. They stay green and keep the fruit. They may not grow much, but I also avoid leaf drop and many other stress related issues. If I want to keep them actively growing all winter, then I give them sun and artificial light well over 12 hours in room temps higher than the 60's and they thrive once again continually growing and taking up nutrients. If I lower the sunlight level to less than that in rooms that warm, they dramatically drop their leaves, loos their rich greeness and invite pests. If I provide sunlight levels to lets say just a south facing window through the winter or less, then they can handle regular house room temps without drawbacks, but if they are in windows that can not provide as much sun as a south facing one, then they MUST be in a much cooler room and stay that way until I am ready for active growth again come the spring. As you can tell, it took me many years to accomplish this and many years to understand my citrus trees react the way they do in CONTAINERS and how to avoid very stressful situations on them. So far so good! Yes I may not kill them, right away that is, but they will produce poorly and not live up to my standards. Now if they were in the ground, then that is a whole different story! I would care less if we had many frigid nights knowing that the ground temps will not coll off as fast as a mix in pots no matter what size. I have a friend that lives in Daytona Florida whom gets lots of freezes, and as much as he will loose some branches and leaves, he never looses the whole tree because the ground stays much warmer than his potted ones. Those have to go in for him. Ok, I am all breathed out..lol Jojo, WELCOME BACK! Maybe we can have a bit more fun around here. Mike

Ed, I would agree with you that whatever gets buried has a good likelihood of being impacted or killed. However, I would strongly disagree with you that we are talking about killing half of the tree's roots. My opinion is that half (maybe more like a third) the tree's roots were affected/killed when the house was initially built and the yard was initially terraced. I have read conflicting things on poplar tree roots ( I read up on them a while back since I have two 2-foot-wide-dbh poplars flanking my house.) One thing I read was a study where they looked at pole-sized poplars and found that the poplars have a lot of roots rather close to the tree, and not a bunch of radial and evenly spaced feeder roots. I have also read that poplar roots can extend anywhere from 160 to 490 feet away from the tree. I am assuming that the area on the other side of the tree is either forest, or backyard of another house. My assumption based on this is that when Brian's house was built and the yard graded, the poplar was definitely affected, so it overcompensated the root loss on the upper slope by creating more feeder roots on the lower slope to get more moisture. As an aside that I won't get too much into, and that you may already know, there is emerging research that trees are connect by a mycorrhizal fungi network via their roots, and trees can actually share and transfer nutrients. The larger trees tend to be “nodes" in these networks. Because of this tree's size, my guess is that it has a lot of ways to get nutrients. That being said, obviously less damage is the most preferred option, and getting someone to bobcat away all if the terraced soil would probably be best. That sounds like it would be a lot of money, but maybe somebody nearby needs a lot of fill dirt for free.