I prune my clematis any time during winter after it is consistently cold. I'm currently in northern OH and just pruned my mom's clematis this week. I'll be pruning mine in NH when I get home, but have done it various years from late November to early April depending on when I get out into the garden. (Some years we've had more than 10 feet of snow and no thaw so my gardens are well buried.) Pump Toad - Since it's already growing, I'd gently pull half of the leaves back by hand (not rake) so that you don't damage new growth tips and then leave the rest of the mulch. I don't usually put on added mulch for the winter as I only plant hardy clematis, though I do have year-round mulch to help keep moisture even.

Why still would you cut them down in spring if they look healthy? I do not understand what you are accomplishing by cutting them down? Why I ask is I am new to irises. I see people cut them down in the fall all the time. I have some regular traditional irises that I do nothing to and look great every year that I have had for awhile. I purchased last fall 8 reblooming ones. 6 of them bloomed in the spring and only one bloomed this fall so far.

Sounds like a pretty typical inspection report for a home built in 1930. Seems to me that this wanna be buyer doesn't have a clue about old homes and thinks they are being cute by posting this report. For a price in the ballpark of 150,000-165,000, I'd think this is a very fine house!

One creating a landscape would never use a silver maple. They are messy, weak, not long lived and don't have spectacular fall color. A sugar maple is all around better (with harvestable wood if you ever get hard up for a new dining table.) :-) in such a wide open space single trees would seem "lost" until canopies got large and trunks got thick. Clusters of trees would be more meaningful. Don't think of it as "one" or "three" trees, but as a large foliage mass held aloft by 3 "columns" as opposed to one. in the large space 3 trees each side would be a stronger, better proportioned statement. I show them in a semi-circle layout but as an alternative you could also arrange in triangular form. To be worked out in plan view. I would drive some highly visible poles or tall sticks in the ground to represent planting locations and drive by them for a few days to see if it needs adjustment