Sorry to start a controversy, and sorry if I came across as belligerent. And sorry for calling you a 'tool bag' B-boy. Having said that, I will stand by my assertion that the 'advice' in question was worthless in light of the fact that I belive my question was, in essence, "what should I do with this weird Hemlock tree I bought on a whim?" And B-boy's answer was essentially "you should have bought something else and here is the method I reccomend for buying it...." But then again, he's right. And of course I knew that when I asked about this and even when I bought it. But I overreacted a little and he was a good sport about it. As for the junipers, sure the effect may be similar if you stake a prostrate juniper, but I know of no juniper that has foliage anything like a Hemlock. And I've seen a lot of juniper. I live in the Texas hill country and regard the native species as ugly, woody, invasive weeds. Even deer hate them for crying out loud. Some of the cultivated garden varities (of non-native junipers) are nice but here that is way too prosaic for me. In other words, everyone does that, and I'm way too cool to do what everyone else does. I followed that link and thought those pictures were great. Those are the types of conifers I think are cool. Of course those dont do as well here. Maybe its a matter of the "grass always being greener" somewhere else. Maybe some of you in cooler zones would like to have citrus trees, or tropical hibiscus in your yard. Me, Im moving to Oregon so I can have weird obscure conifers and 20 different japanese maples.

Oh, that's great, I often stay in Chaska when I am in the TC. Where is Chaska Farm and Garden? I'll be in the TC a lot in June...passing through 2x on my way back and forth to Texas and then again for the convention....oh, and then probably to help my friend in Chaska paint her townhouse. I may as well just live there this summer! I have adopted the same rule as you, although I do confess to a lot of online-gawking of desirable plants. And I have decided that I am only going to lurk on the internet after dark so that I am in the garden during light hours. It's so easy...like right this moment...to take a quick look at a site/pic on the net and end up here for an hour or two! Yikes, I've got to get my real work done, too! Maybe we can support each other! :) I'm sending you my e-mail. Mary

"I think the odds of a successful east coast planting of western hemlock would increase tremendously if we could get get some interior sourced understock." don't you mean eastern sourced rootstock? wouldn't it make more sense just to graft western hemlocks onto the hemlocks that are already native to MA? FWIW of course we all know about the controversy about neonics...and can probably expect them to be banned someday. I treated my 2 large eastern hemlocks twice, I think it was fall of 08 and spring of 09. Something like that. Just using the label approved method of calculating dosage based on trunk diameter, and pouring at the base of the tree with about 5 gallons of water diluted imidacloprid. No need for injection or whatnot. Of course I used a professional brand, not the overprice stuff you get at a big box store packaged by Bayer or Ortho. The stuff is so darn powerful it fully cleared both trees of heavy adelgid infestations, and they've never been back. (I think they were only 1-3 years from dying.) There are probably no vectors nearby: the closest natural hemlocks are in northern Harford County over 10 miles away, and you don't really see them in landscapes anymore. Also I had an uncommon Asian hemlock from either Forestfarm or Woodlanders, can't remember which...and it died of root rot in one of those "heavy downpours following drought" around 2011 or 2012. So at least this far south, those should be planted with caution. (I don't rule out the possibility it was actually a mislabeled western US hemlock) I had bought it in 2008 or so...but unfortunately forgot to include it in my spreadsheet of 800+ plants so I don't remember which it was. Tsuga diversifolia rings a bell, I'd have to go look in my catalog library...and that ain't gonna happen.

Just might do that! lol I may later on do more in the way of 'islands' around some of the trees and add something or other under them. Something to think about next winter. I'm leaving the center of the yard open, so when the grand kids come we can throw foot ball etc. As viewed from the deck almost directly SSE. The wife decided we should leave things so we can 'drive through' past the house in to the front yard for furniture/appliance moving etc. Front yard not so big but I had to move the lily station because after we added the bb hoop, we couldn't drive around that side of the house without running them over. You can see in the grass where it used to be. It was so root bound it hardly bloomed anyways. I'm standing in the neighbors driveway to take this pic. My yard ends several feet this side of the green ash in front of me. All this and my deer farming in the countryhas been quite enough for this year. I just finished my third week of full retirement. Well at least I got everything I wanted done for this year. Sometimes our Autumns can be quite wet so not much gets done.