Well I am happy to announce my roses arrived today from Countryside and so far they look great! Very healthy looking, small, but healthy. I'm just hoping they really take off this summer! I just got home and saw the box on the steps. Didn't even wait to get in the house just stopped right their put down my stuff and opened the box! I recieved Blush Noisette, Duchesse de Brabant, and Mac. I ordered 4 others from Ashdown (Hermosa, Mrs Dudley Cross, Marie Pavie, Sombreuil) and they are to arrive at the end of the month. I'm getting so excited that spring as finally arrived here. Their is already a bud on Lamarque! Meghan

I did it for four or five years. The trees I got then mostly were not much more than dormant whips or sticks...and I had a perennial house in which to pot them and baby them a bit until they were old enough to withstand planting out. I had decent success rate, especially if you consider them essentially 'freebies' but found that they are marked with some paint, and sometimes the markings are not even visible or questionably so. A few each year had no visible roots and/or croaked. My daughter ordered some last year and planted hers out directly with a good success rate, but they looked like a lot better specimens than they used to send. I did have problems with this source, however, when I ordered fruit trees. I paid for full dwarf trees, and not a one of them are, nor even semi-dwarf. They are all standards. This presented a problem in that they ended up spaced too close for their size, and it also takes a standard tree longer to bear. I also ordered two seckle pears, and ended up with ornamental bradford pears and it took me five years for them to fruit to find out.

Well, if you have a way to keep them dormant and unfrozen over the winter, you might be able to plant them out come spring. Keeping them in pots in an unheated garage or outbuilding, using potting soil or mulch that you can keep barely moist, might keep them going to spring. Your other option would be to have your holes already dug, and put the trees in the holes at once, backfilling with the soil you dug - you might have to keep it in a bunch of 5-gal. buckets, in a garage or outbuilding, so it stays unfrozen. Water as often as the ground dried out until it froze for good, and then mulch. Either way, you MIGHT keep them alive. As far as the listing goes: Holly - evergreen, full sun - you need a male and a female to get berries. It can take some shade, but is slowish-growing. Mature height and width depends on the cultivar they are sending, but count on eventually getting at least 15x10', more probably 20x15'. Space at least 6', better 12' from another tree, unless you want to make a hedge with the arborvitae, when they can be 6-8' apart - further from the end arborvitae than the arborvitae from each other, as the holly will be slower growing. Blue Spruce, 2ea - full sun to part shade, mature height 40-60', width 15-30'. Moderate growth rate. Some selected cultivars can be shorter or wider, slower or faster growing, but I imagine you will get the straight species. You can plant these reasonably close together (6-10'), and have a "grove" of 2, or have 2 specimens, planted 15-20' apart. Lodi Apple - full sun. If there are no other apple trees in near proximity, fruit production may be low. I assume it's not grafted onto dwarfing rootstock, so assume 20-40' tall and the same wide. Plant accordingly. Aborvitae, 3ea - Sun to part shade. Height depends on the cultivar they are sending - the native species is open in growth, grows to 40' plus, but you might get one of the smaller, tighter-growing selections. It will bronze in the winter, returning to green with spring. If you plan on these as your major winter screening, then plant them as needed to give the most coverage, about 6-8' apart. Azalea - filtered, light shade. Height depends on the cultivar sent, as does the flower color, but assume 4-10'. You might get a deciduous one, in which case, assume it will be at the tall end of the range. Space about 6-8' from other plants, or at 4-6' if wanted as part of a tapestry hedge - not recommended unless all plants grow at about the same rate to similar heights. Black Walnut, 2ea - Sun. Little else will happliy grow under a black walnut, although the shade is good for sitting, as slightly dappled. Don't plant next to driveways, walkways or patios, as the falling nuts are heavy, and will stain the ground, cars or cement/brick with permanent black stains. Roots are obvious and may make problems for mowers. 75-100' tall, moderate growth. Space at 20' or more from other trees, and 12-20' from each other. Red Maple - Sun to part shade. Up to 60' x 40', depending on cultivar, fairly rapid growth. Can reseed. Good fall color. Space 12-20' apart from other plants, depending on whether wanted as a grove or a specimen. Forsythia, 2ea - full sun. Depending on the cultivar, 6-12' tall, and wider than tall as it makes a thicket of arching suckers. Can be pruned by taking out a third of the shoots every year, in the winter. Space 3-10' apart, as a hedge, or up to 15' if specimens. Sugar Maple - sun to part shade. Moderate growth, to 60' x 30-40'. Good fall color. It must be at least 4' in diameter before you can tap it for syrup, with only one bucket, and then only one more bucket per each extra 2 in., if I recall correctly from my VT girlhood - look it up to be sure, as too early tapping can be detrimental to the tree. Space at 20-40' from other trees, esp. if you want a specimen tree. White Pine - full sun. Fast growth to 100' x 30'. Pyramidal in its youth, as it grows, the lower branches will die back and need to be removed. Space 20-40'. River Birch - full sun, some afternoon shade. Fast growth to 40-60'. Branches droop, need to be limbed-up for easier passage of walking or mowers - best done in winer or summer - spring pruning can lead to dripping sap. Dappled shade. Roots can be a surface problem. Needs plenty of water, will drop leaves with drought stress. Space 12-20'. Silver Maple - sun. Fast growing, with concommitant weak branches, to 40-100'. Open habit, dappled shade. Roots can be a surface problem, as can growing grass under it. Reseeds. Space 15-25'. Red Oak - sun. Fast growth to 60-75', widely spreading. Open shade. Space 12-15'. Pin Oak - sun. Moderate to rapid growth to 50-65', round-headed when mature, slender when young. Lower branches droop to the ground, and higher up ones will do the same if the tree is limbed up for walking or mowers to pass under - best left to grow as it wants. Sapce 12-25'. White Flowering Dogwood - sun to light shade. moderate growth to 25-30' x same. Low branching. flat-topped with maturity. Space 12-20'. Redbud - sun to part shade. Moderately fast growth to 20-30' by same, broad-spreading branches. Space 12-20'.

I agree Ziggy that engineering wetlands from scratch is tricky anyway without the added burden of trying to relocate mature trees. I'm guessing that politics had something to do with the effort to focus on relocating the actual trees rather than using more viable seedlings and saplings. Supposedly, Wall-Mart had to compensate for the loss of mature trees and not just the area of lost wetlands but perhaps that could have been accomplished by expanding the size of the restored wetland or including some component in the mitigation plan for longterm conservation of existing wetlands. I worked with the Corps for a few years doing environmental work and agree with your assessment that the Corps has accounted for more wetland loss despite a small few worthy efforts like the Everglades restoration. My experience was that Gov't agencies like the Corps take their lead from the White House Executive Office who have the power of appointment and policy committment to steer agencies fairly widely within the broad mission jurisdiction. I was in the private sector consulting with the Corps during the Reagan years when the Corps considered their environmental responsibilities to be elective - they were after all part of the DOD (Dept of Defense) though a civilian part. I was told many times by COE officials of my mitigation recommendations that I should be careful not to call for too much environmental adherence or the Corps would simply choose not to follow them. Later when I worked with the Corps as an employee during a more environmentally conscious administration, more (some) emphasis was given to environmentally friendly solutions when possible including avoidance and restoration as well as flood control that used natural principals (in addition to and often instead of engineered ones). There was also a more open planning process with public hearings and serious input from stakeholders. I hear now that under the new admin, all my friends in the Environmental Division either left or are hanging on and trying to wait it out. They don't get funded, they don't get to hire replacements, their managers are not scientists, their recommendations are ignored, they don't get invited to meetings that are now run by the engineer planners. So anyway, sorry you are unemployed. Maybe in the next administration, we'll see more emphasis on environmental management again.