hey down here in adrian MI .... we had 10 weeks of drought.. with ridiculous heat all thru the nights ... what was you weather this summer .... how was it different from other years .... and are we dealing with recent transplants or fully established tree???? and what might have been different with these trees this year ??? .. like you quit watering the lawn ... etc ... as far as i am concerned.. fall color is variable year to year .... and many in the tree forum agree ... ken ps: my cleveland select also has all its leaves.. whereas many other trees shed them early, prior to color change ... and it is waiting for that first hard frost.. when every leaf will fall off as the sun starts warming them after that freeze ... probably within an hour...whoomph ....

With all due respect to your forester, I think you might want to consider your choices further. Red Sunset is a wildly popular tree, and deservedly so - they are gorgeous. But in our area, they are not as tolerant of our soils and climate as the Freeman hybrids. October Glory is so late to color up that I don't recommend it. Good tree, just not reliable year to year for color. Fall color, from year to year, is variable of course, but in a good year Autumn Fantasy is a screaming red blaze of glory. Quite a sight... You might also consider the Caddo sugar maple selections - Autumn Splendor and John Pair. These are admittedly slower growing, but very very nice sturdy trees that put up with our summer heat and drought extremely well. If you are in the vicinity, drop by the K-State extension farm on the south side of Wichita - there is a fine stately example of the John Pair maple. State foresters tell me that the only problem with bald cypress in Kansas is chlorosis associated with our alkaline soils. The father west you go, the greater the problem. But if you have good growing trees in your area. then more than likely you will be successful, as well. brian

Amy: With the exception of Cooking Apple Green and Farrow's Cream, yes the fandex chip does match when held up to the walls, even though they seem very different separately. With the aforementioned colors, it's off. Maybe it's just my light. Jane, you shouldn't have to buy a quart of this stuff. They sell little sample cans that I found went very far and allowed me to do big swatches. Now with them, the only color that surprised me was Farrow's Cream, but that is in two large rooms and I think that that's why. No way a big swatch could have shown me what this color would really do. It's lovely though. F&B colors are tricky, no doubt, but beautiful. I'm just not sure they're going to work for matching something. But if you're willing to go a shade lighter or darker so that you have something that is complimentary and looks beautiful together, then yes, it would be great. Citron is pretty yellow. Are you trying to go more yellow or less? Farrow's Cream is much more creamy than yellow, it also has the bizarre *hint* of olive in it, that only I and my Dad can see. It drove me nuts at first, but now that all my stuff is in the room, I've grown to really love it. Ask for the sample pots! I think they're $5 each, which is about what a C2 giant chip costs and that's about the size of swatch I got out of them. Ivette P.S. Definitely multiple coats change the color. But I found that to be true with all the paints I used, except for FPE. F&B in particular seems to benefit and grow more luminous with more coats. I deliberately did three coats in three rooms because of that, and I'm glad I did.

I cannot think of one good reason to recommend the Autumn Blaze callery pear. Short lived, prone to catastrophic breakage due to inferior structure, stinky flowers, thorns, and susceptible to fire blight, it doesn't have much going for it.