lizkuntne, I purchased 2 dwarf everbearing mulberries from Florida Hills Nursery in Nov 2013. They were essentially plugs about 4" tall. They languished at first (almost died) because I didn't baby them enough. In a last ditch effort, I removed all soil from the roots, which included a cloth-like wrap around the roots. Then I put them in a 6" pot with the 5-1-1 container mix found on this forum. I put them in a clear storage bin indoors under grow lights, to increase the humidity for a while. In Mar 2014 or so, I moved them outside slowly. I have been fertilizing with kelp, fish, acid lovers fertilizer. Now they are about 2-3' tall and just outgrew their pot-- now in a 7 gallon root pouch. No fruit yet, but they seem to grow pretty fast. Florida hills is much cheaper than the other places, like Ison's for >$20, though other's plants might be bigger to start. Rob

Another point to consider, if this is a true "easement", then your neighbor still owns the property your drive is on, and therefore you would not have a "right" to plant anything at all without their permission. This "easement" almost certainly an access easement that allows for a road/drive and utilities, but gives you no other rights whatsoever. I don't know if this is a true easement, or if you in fact own a strip of land to the road, but you need to keep this in mind. You can find out from your "plat" that either you will have a copy of, or you can find at the county courthouse. IMHO I would say don't risk ticking off the good neighbor, and live with it especially if you don't actually "own" the stripe. JMHO Artrees

thanks- these pics are mainly from the front yard. the large tree in the first pic is a Colorado blue spruce, surrounding by smaller green giants mostly. The second pic is a norway spruce in full bloom. The last pic is a fat albert spruce- again surrounded by green giants, and a norway spruce peeking in the pic on the right. I have a few bloodgood japanese maples too to pop in some red color. Hope this helps. I know I am not up on all the latin names and such and don't claim to know as much as alot of other people here- but I enjoy doing it. Much of this hobby is trial and error. So it pays to research stuff before you pay for anything. I've lost alot of stuff too.

I wouldn't count on either remaining only 10 ft. wide - 10 ft. wide for a tree is nothing (see the widths given for the trees in the C.S.U. tables I linked to earlier). If you are that restricted maybe you should be looking at shrubs. Also the planting site looks like it might be a little damp, the presence of the aspen would tend to reinforce this. So it might be damper than the cherry would like; in addition when purchasing flowering cherries you have to watch that the stock offered is not grafted on sweet cherry (Prunus avium) or you are likely to end up with suckering, heavy surface roots and delayed graft incompatibility. As I mentioned earlier deciduous trees are only going to provide much screening when in leaf, and the aspen wasn't even doing that when it was in leaf. But maybe you are only concerned about privacy enhancement during summer, when sitting etc. out in the yard. If instead you don't want to be able to see the neighbor's house whenever you look that way then you need to be planting evergreen trees or shrubs. Also a row or grouping of evergreen trees on the north side of the property - whichever one that is - is a good idea in cold climates because it blocks Arctic winds. This is actually recommended for sheltering the house and reducing heat loss, in addition to making adjacent outdoor spaces more pleasant to be in whenever there is a sharp wind blowing out of the North - be it winter, spring or fall.