You wont believe this....I just went to botonical gardens today and the one thing that I really wanted was a lilac bush..it smelled sooooo goood! AND I have lots of butterfly bushes. Pink and purple. I've never sent one so if it dosn't live I'll send you another. Cuttings work? Or do you want me to root them first? Do we have a trade? Tasha in IL.

hi i would love to get a few of these if anyone has some, will trade anything on my list for these,Happy Gardening,Sheila

Forgive my subject line. First post in this forum. I HAVE a lilac bush to trade. Thanks. Kathryn

nandina - actually, our house was traditional 3-coat cement stucco, it was just done completely wrong by a builder who had no clue what he was doing. We actually had one expert who flew up from Wilmington to assess our house - he was one of the guys that discovered the synthetic stucco problem. But the problem is not just confined to synthetic stucco - now that I've learned more than I ever wanted to about stucco and proper flashing practices, I see tons of houses around here that have (or are going to have) the same problems. Sad. karin - The root problem is solved - we ripped every bit of stucco, sheathing, and insulation out of the house and had it down to studs and drywall. Everything that went back on was properly flashed and we took extra precautions such as a rainscreen to insure that water that gets behind the siding will be able to drain. Your question of how much foundation planting we really need is a good one - that's why I was thinking more of perennials (ferns and hostas) along the front - if it dies back in the winter, so be it. I think the house looks much better with no landscaping than it did with the big overgrown bushes. I know that I definitely don't want the traditional yew, holly, and barberry bushes that everybody seems to have around here. However, since you seem to know a lot about evergreens, can you recommend a few that won't grow much more than 3-5 ft tall and are very dense? I'd like to at least get the bushes in to screen the A/C units before winter as they're quite ugly. And I wouldn't mind one or two in the front just so it's not completely bare in the winter, but I'd want them to stay lower than the windows. I'm in zone 6 (think I forgot to say that in my first post). I do have to do something - we don't get a ton of snow and the lawn will be a muddy disaster if I don't get something done - it's only been a few weeks since the drainage work started and I'm vacuuming and cleaning floors about five times as much as I used to. What don't you like about the vinca lawn idea? My landscaper isn't fond of it either, but that's because he told me he hates spending 3 days planting thousands of vinca plants. I don't mind if it spreads - I've got about 3 acres of lawn and another 2 of meadow (lawn I don't mow, basically), and I really want to add something else interesting to break up the sea of grass.