hairmetal - do you mind sharing the name of the nursery in Purcellville? BTW - went to Susanna Farms for the first time in donkey's years. OMG they are expensive. But being in MoCo like that, I can't really blame them. Charge what the market will bare. Oddly they had some wierd bargains that almost felt like they'd forgotten to add a 0 to a price. Unfortunately they were too big to fit in my car, like a nice Juniperus rigida pendula, that I think was only $79. It was huge. I really wanted to get something but just couldn't hold my nose tightly enough. I can understand pricing something like a showy Japanese maple high. But they had some little Trochodendrons that were no more than 20" high. Sure they are slow growing when small...but $120? Who's going to buy that? At that size they are about the most anonymous, bland, broad leaved evergreens imaginable. They look like scrounged up bunches of English Ivy. I maybe could have gone up to $65 out of the kindness of my heart, but, $120? Nope. But if they get rich suckers from Potomac to pay those prices, good for them. They do have a nice selection of what I'd call the standard upscale plants...which is getting harder and harder to find. For example also took a quick walk 'round Merrifield's Merrifield location (haha), was disappointed with their selection of similar stuff. If it's showy and marketable, like the Encore Azaleas, they make room for it. Otherwise, overall a more utilitarian, albeit slightly less expensive, selection. And still heavily pushing Leyland Cypresses which is a questionable business practice IMHO. This post was edited by davidrt28 on Wed, Oct 16, 13 at 23:46

After pricing metal conduit versus galvanized steel, my wife and I decided galvanized steel was not much more in cost, and would be indestructible. So we had 10-foot lengths of 1/2" galvanized steel pipe cut into 6-foot and 4-foot lengths and then threaded at Home Depot. Got the corners and tees, made a trellis 8 feet long and 6 feet tall at the edge of our 4x8 box. The trellis has two 4-foot horizontal bars supported by 3 6-foot vertical bars. I hope that's clear enough. I had 64-inch pieces of rebar laying around the house, cut those in half, hammered them halfway (16 inches) into the ground, with 16 inches sticking up, and placed the vertical pipes over that, and used pipe straps to secure the pipe to the box. Nothing will take these down, even if we decide to do watermelons some day.

I haven't done that, but here's a recipe from Delena Tull's book Edible and Useful Plants of Texas and the Southwest. Plum Jam 1 pound fresh ripe plums 1 tablespoon pectin 1 1/2 cups sugar Slice open the plums and remove the pits. Place the plums in a pot, and barely cover the fruit with water. Simmer for 5 minutes. Push the pulp through a sieve to remove the skins, or leave the skins in the jam. Place the pulp in a clean pot, add the pectin, and heat to a rolling boil. Add the sugar and reheat. Boil vigorously and stir continuously for 1 to 3 minutes. Pour the jam into jars.

I just copied the URL and gave it to the librarian ... ... and she gave it back to me, saying that "You can find how to make ANYTHING on youtube ... anything!". ole joyful