for strawberries I strongly prefer Honeoye June bearing. I buy certified virus free plants and they all grow. I plant them in the early spring and remove any berry buds that might show the first year. The plants are kept very weed free and allowed to multiply. In the second year the strawberries come on great. Honeoye freeze very well. Out of 100 plants I expect to get over 500 quarts of strawberries in a few weeks. I freeze most of the whole. I chop them lose from each other when I want to use them. They will stay in tip top shape for years in the freezer with no work to freeze them whole. Except I like a vary large 5 gallon bags of thick food grade plastic bags. You better have lots of room in the freezer. I hate ever bearing strawberries because the total crop is tiny compared to June bearing types. Also the berries on ever bearing are not as good tasting and are small. Waste of time and effort to grow everbearing in my opinion. Here is a link that might be useful: Where I get virus free strawberries the best

one rule of though here is that fast growing trees are usually week trees. Root systems are in first 17 inches of the soil and go twice to three times longer than the drip line of the tree.

I bought a few packs of bare-root hollyhocks at Walmart during the early spring. I tried starting hollyhock seeds inside over the winter, but my kitten got into the plants. So I decided I would just try out the bare-root plants because I don't have the patience to wait two year for them to bloom. I have a lot of plants that I planted this year that won't bloom until next year. We just bought this house last fall and there is nothing for flowers in our yard other than three tulips. But anyway, while I was planting them along the house, I noticed that all of the bare-roots were in really nice condition. None were shriveled or dried out and they all had growth on them before I put them in the ground. Hopefully they come out nice this summer.

There is a book called 'Grow What Where' which could give you a good idea. I used to have it and lost it with my sister's house fire. I am about to buy it again. It is just lists of Aussie natives that are good for or bad for particular things, like pipes. Book review here: http://farrer.riv.csu.edu.au/ASGAP/APOL2006/oct06-r1.html Cheers Judy