are you in lenawee county??? .. i am in raisin twnshp ... i dont understand what you want to do .... presuming you are behind those Picea pungens.. why bother on the road side of them??? and your base problem will be watering.. until fully established ... not only are the trees very mature.. and very aggressive in stealing water.. you would have to have at least 1000 feet of hose ... to water such for a year or two ... the county soil conservation office offers.. very cheap.. small native shrubs.. at proper planting time... but that delivery date is very fast approaching.. i do NOT know if you can get on this springs orders.. due for delivery in 3 weeks or so .... see link ... 50 serviceberry for 43 bucks.. but you would have to make some very fast phone calls.. to see if you can get some this spring.. if not.. talk to them about the fall plant sale.. if any ... but i would suggest that you NOT plant all of one thing.. diversify your planting ... they also offer dogwood ... etc ... native plants.. would be much more likely to survive w/o a high amount of TLC .... again.. i would landscape the side of the pungens.. i see.. and not bother with the road side ... good luck ken Here is a link that might be useful: pdf file

Entling, after reading about Pagoda dogwood I was smitten. Beautiful form and nice flowers and berries. I ordered 40 native seedlings from a nursery in NH, including 10 Cornus alternifolia. But these are going to be little baby 1-2 year old seedlings! I'm impatient and want to buy something that's already 6 feet tall at least. Gcreek, height is not so much an issue, but width is (this location is about 8 feet from the driveway). Something that grew about 15-20 ft high would be great but not as wide. Red chokeberry is probably too short and shrubby (but great for the other side of the yard!) Cornus florida would be beautiful but would probably eventually get too wide. Amelanchier seems to grow more vertically than laterally. Kind of a rangy multi-stemmed habit, but maybe with good pruning it could be shaped nicely. I also read that it casts fairly light shade and has well behaved roots and perennials can be planted underneath (which is good because I already have peonies circling this burning bush).

I'm undertaking a massive naturalization project this year. Tearing out the whole back lawn & planting or seeding grasses, forbs, shrubs, & small trees, most at bare root or seedling stage. I'll build around what I already have, which includes a silver maple, a serviceberry (of course!), & a good many arborvitaes. There's also some exotic but harmless stuff (European holly, English yew) that the previous owner planted & I might tear out eventually, but not now. I've been planning this for 2 years & am really looking forward to getting started. I've already ordered a bunch of plants and have winter-sown some of the forbs & subshrubs. Here is a list of the species I aim to plant or sow by this fall: adiantum pedatum andropogon gerardii apios americana aquilegia canadensis aralia nudicaulis asclepias tuberosa athyrium filix-femina carex hystericina carex plantaginea carex platyphylla cornus florida desmodium canadense dicentra canadensis Dicentra cucullaria elymus canadensis eupatorium purpureum eurybia divaricata gaultheria procumbens geranium maculatum hepatica nobilis var. obtusa hibiscus moscheutos ipomoea pandurata kalmia latifolia lespedeza capitata liatris pycnostachya lindera benzoin lobelia siphilitica maianthemum racemosum monarda fistulosa morella pensylvanica ostrya virginiana packera obovata parthenocissus quinquefolia penstemon hirsutus phlox divaricata Physocarpus opulifolius podophyllum peltatum polystichum acrostichoides quercus rubra rhododendron prinophyllum rosa carolina sanguinaria canadensis schizachyrium scoparium solidago odora sorghastrum nutans symphyotrichum novae-angliae thalictrum dioicum thelypteris noveboracensis tiarella cordifolia trillium grandiflorum tsuga canadensis viburnum lentago viola labradorica Viola Ãpalmata viola pedata

Hi, sorry, a little late to the party. I just moved to CO and this is my first winter here, used to live in MI. In MI, I rarely saw a finch in the winter. Here is CO, I have a lot of finches (red right now but some were yellow in the fall). I also get titmice (titmouses?), chickadees, downy woodpeckers, and flickers on a daily basis. Anyway, I have both black oilers in a tube and suet basket. The finches, titmice, and chickadees seem to like the suet. They eat both the seed and the suet, but the suet is what attracted them in the first place.