Pretty! I actually love the ferny foliage of true yarrow. Mine is also kind of aggressive but it's so easy-care and I love the flowers. I can always chop it back in the spring and keep it in bounds. So, now an update on my tansy situation: First, a thousand thanks to Mosswitch for telling me what it was, since I immediately Googled it and found out that there were probably still roots everywhere and I should go back out and dig it up again, so I did. Talk about a PITA! That thing had sent its roots out everywhere, over and under other plants' roots, and it was very difficult to get it all out. I *think* I did, and now I will always recognize and shun the evil tansy. Still like yarrow though!

Right about now, I usually do a lot of deadheading, and am normally meticulous about this. But this year, I am being lazy and procrastinating a bit, and am not really minding the spent flower heads on the Miss Kim Lilac and the Buddleia. Towards the end of the season I will stop deadheading on some things like Cosmos, Gaillardia, and the Echinacea to leave seeds for the birds. Another thing other gardeners recommend is shearing back plants like Salvia after their bloom. This will deadhead and tidy up the plant, and encourage rebloom. I can't stand the smell of Salvia nemorosa, so I haven't done that this year either! But I have a few plants that need this treatment out there right now. I cut back most things in the Spring. I enjoy the winter interest, the stalks catch leaves for mulch, act as a slight wind break, provide habitat for overwintering insects (mostly beneficial I figure), provide seeds for the birds, and I don't mind the messy brown stalks. It's more interesting than looking at a bare expanse. There are exceptions, and these get cut down in the fall - Peonies, Lilies, anything affected by disease, and some really scraggly ugly things.

Carrie..Roppel makes a product for small critters such as rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, etc. that is pretty good. We had Bambi to visit a few nights ago, and she slipped through an opening in the shrubbery between our breezeway and our next door neighbor and took out a beautiful hibiscus plant and several other potted plants. We have only seen one rabbit since we have lived here 6 yrs. but the Bambi and friends are plentiful! We are wondering if the deer were the two little ones that are running around here. I just don't think an adult deer could fit through the space that was in that shrubbery.

I don't fertilize trees and bushes either, Susan. Don't fertilize perennials either! LOL! If I have something--perennial--that's looking especially unhappy, I occasionally go around and give a few individual plants a shot of soluble fertilizer, but, generally speaking for things growing in the ground, if a particular plant is really unhappy, it's probably gonna take more than fertilizer to fix it. (Plants in pots are a different story.) Usually it's something more like being planted in a totally wrong environment--light, water, wind, heat, etc.--or in soil that is just so bad that a really major revision would be required to help much. When I have perennials that aren't doing well, if it's something I really want, I'll move it first, usually along with a lot of soil amendment, to see if that fixes the problem, but for the most part, plants that can't make it on their own are outta here, and then I can happily try something else. Not really saying you should never fertilize anything, but I think a lot of the fertilizer that's being sold doesn't do much more than help the bank accounts of the folks that are selling it! IMO! If you advertise it, they will buy it! "Tree Spikes" for instance! While tree roots may not be very deep, they spread out far, far beyond the trunk of the tree, and even beyond the drip line, and I dare say that most people who use those things pound a few in here and there a few feet away from the trunk and think they're helping their tree! Dan and TreeBarb know a lot more about trees than I do, but I'm guessing that if your trees are growing in your lawn, and you're feeding your lawn a high nitrogen fertilizer once or twice a year--especially in spring, you're gonna be doing far more good than concentrating a little bit of fertilizer here and there with something like the Spikes. I way agree with Dan and TreeBarb that the best thing to do is to put in something that is known to like our soil and conditions out here. Then you can just relax and enjoy your tree(s)! I have some sort of Spirea in my front yard that has been yellow--yeah, it's supposed to be green--ever since I moved in here. Got tired of it last year and cut it almost all the way down to the ground--thinking it might die for me--but it's back, still yellow! It'll probably be a few more years, but when I finally get around to it, it's gonna be gone--along with some kind of a Viburnum that is TOTALLY in the wrong place, thanks to some landscaper who was getting paid to put "something in!" It's right at the corner of my very small front porch, and if I let it grow unencumbered it would wind up being 10' tall and easily wide enough to completely block access to my front door. If only removing/replacing established shrubs wasn't such a major project, I'd do it now, but in the meantime I can keep trying to kill them! ;-) And, I know you were asking about trees, but one more thing about perennials! Many, if not most, xeric perennials will do much better if they are NOT fertilized. Things like yarrow, Agastache, Russian Sage. So if your new perennial beds are all xeric or have xeric plants in them, keep that in mind if you decide to fertilize the perennials. Most xeric plants come from places that have pretty tough growing conditions, and have learned pretty well to adapt to whatever they happen to find where they're growing. Too much water isn't good for many xeric plants too--a problem I sometimes have since I have non-xeric and xeric plants all growing side by side! Wish I had enough room to separate them to make it easy for myself! (And wish the cottonwood trees would get cut down so I'd actually have enough sun to grow the things I want to!) I'm curious now! How many folks around here REGULARLY feed their perennials? Skybird