Maple Valley in Gillett, WI grows Ashmeads in Zone 4. Not exactly Minneapolis area. But I've tasted his Ashmeads at the local apple tasting. I thought they were pretty good, but not knock-your-socks-off awesome. I've never tasted Calville Blanc, not sure if he's got that one.

Victoriastar- I'm not familiar with that particular greenhouse, but I do have a couple of observations to make: 1. SunGlo has been in business a long time and they make a quality product. I've been to home and garden shows and looked at their greenhouses and I would not have a concern about quality. If you look at the specs, the manufacturer has a 12 year guarantee on the frame, which is pretty long in the greenhouse world...and it will probably last decades. 2. Like all things Costco, you have a money back guarantee. This was true even for the $6000 greenhouse I got from Costco a couple of years ago that was shipped from 1500 miles away. I don't think you will find this kind of guarantee buying greenhouses on the open market. 3. The list of equipment that comes with that specific greenhouse is amazing...you probably won't need to buy another thing. I say order now and enjoy. It looks like a very good value.

David, I remember seeing quite a few at the Finley Ave farmer's market a couple of weeks ago. Sorry, I didn't check any prices....but I know zilch about J.M. so I probably wouldn't know a good price if I saw one. You might also want to check with Wayside's out in Moody. I haven't been out there this year, but I know I've seen J. maples there in the past. If I were going to landscape a new house from scratch, I know that's where I would go first for any specimen plants. Their prices are generally quite a bit cheaper than even the big box stores.

Mary, It sure sounds like you had a wandering passionvine that wandered right out of its bed. Being that I'm so far north (PA), I don't know if they could even get a chance to wander from one place to another. I'd be lucky to just get them to live outside at all over the winter. I think if I want them, I'll have to dug a few up every fall and bring them inside and then take them back outside the following spring. Btw, I don't blame you for not wanting to try that passionvine again for fear that it might have contaminants on for the cats. If you decide to raise any paw paws, if I were you I'd either start them from seed like I did or buy them as potted plants, but after my experiences of getting bareroot paw paw trees in the mail without them living either time, I would NOT buy a bareroot paw paw. I suspected that I got junk both times, and I was probably right. I mentioned those times to someone who I trust to know about these things and here's what he said: "You are right in what you said about online folks not caring sometimes. But it gets worse. What you probably bought in those big pawpaw trees is just a sucker from the roots that was yanked out of the ground with little care. Pawpaws sucker pretty freely and some people think that selling the stem with little roots is the same as selling a tree. It is not." So, I really would recommend getting a potted paw paw tree and NOT a bareroot one. When I received the paw paw trees in the mail, they didn't even look like they had a root, but I thought maybe that's the way they're supposed to look. I think it's just like that person told me and that they were just yanked out and were suckers off of other trees, not an individual tree. Besides, I have since seen online a pic of a person using a backhoe to dig up a small paw paw tree that was only a few feet high. It was a shock to see just how far a person would have to dig to get all of the root out of the ground. Yes, for fruit you have to have two trees for pollination if you want to get fruit from the trees, which I do. My original reason for wanting the trees was just for the Zebra Swallowtails, but the more I read about paw paws, I thought that they sure do sound good! Anyway, there's my paw paw advice FWIW, and I'm not sure if one tree would bring in the butterflies or not. I plan on having at least half a dozen. That's great that you saw some butterflies. They won't be here for awhile yet. MissSherry, That's great that one of your Zebra Swallowtails emerged! I can hardly wait to see the pictures of it. If you try raising them again, I really hope that you don't have a lot of trouble with them like last year. Hopefully it was just a bad year for them or something and that won't be commonplace whenever you raise them. That's the way it goes with the GSTs with me. It's really frustrating that they drop dead right and left. They can be right on the rue and crawl right off acting like they don't even recognize it as a host plant. I even tried putting them back on, but they crawled off again. If they die, they almost always die when they're very small. I'm looking forward to the day (more like year) when my couple of wafer ash trees will be big enough to support a fair number of cats. I want to see if the plant improves their survival rate. I also started gas plants last year, and it will be interesting to see if the GSTs lay any eggs on them. I don't recall anyone on here saying that they raised any on gas plants. It's supposed to be in the 70's and low 80's here for about 5 days starting on Thursday. Yay!!! Cathy