Not here in the San Francisco Bay Area... Retail plant sales continue to be quite good, after a slow period back in March and April which was entirely related to the extreme amount of rain those two months. Much of the plant sales are no doubt linked to the continued amount of new construction and remodeling taking place here, which hasn't been too badly effected by the slowdown of housing sales as interest rates have risen, and people have become abit more conservative of large scale spending. Of course, California and the Southwest are a different market in that we are just now approaching prime planting season, and winter is no detriment to installing new landscaping, and fall sales at all the local botanic gardens are heavily anticipated by the locals. Here in my local area, there are diverse approaches to continued fall into winter sales, with some keeping the emphasis on plants, and others doing the holiday themed merchandising of Christmas and Halloween items. I know I would much rather patronize the nurseries that don't move out all the plants to sell Christmas trees, but that is just my personal preference. I think it would also be useful if nurseries did more of an educational/advertising push to encourage fall plantings, and had more fall and winter interest plants featured. Its unfortunately still true that spring is the biggest season of sales for most local nurseries, as the business volume just drops off for many. No need for that in my view, as a walk through some of the local botanic gardens will show plenty of seasonal interest even in January or February here, and even November or December can look as lush, full and colorful as mid May in the garden.

Thanks to all for your responses. Here's the latest. I had my plumber come back to look at this issue as well as another one I was having. Not sure what he did but I know he disassembled all connections and then reconnected everything and the slow leak is now gone (its only been a couple days though so far). My other issue is that since the bathroom got remodeled, we have been getting a gurgling (glub glub) sound in the sink which is still there. The plumber said it was not his fault and basically told me that there was air in te line somewhere and that he would have to cut a hole in te bac of the vanity and install some kind of device (the name slips my mind). Don't have a price on it yet, but it sounds like it might be kind of expensive. Any chance there is some easier solution to this?

Happy to report that yesterday I drove the Jeep for the first time. Easy peasy. Going out again for the next three days - grocery shopping at Walmart, two dr's appts. the next two days. A friend is going w/me today, but after today, I'll be solo flying. Hip is soooooo much better, but the old back is the problem, which never gets better - just worse. Still thanking God for my quick healing - just three months ago, I didn't think I'd be this far along. Thanks for y'all's prayers and concerns. Keep up the good work, mosaicists - you're still the best.

Embothrium - I didn't amend the planting hole. I'm pretty sure we scratched the root ball a bit. I haven't fertilized it yet this year.....we did sort of mulch it, but we didn't mulch it too heavily. The store told us they liked to be close to the surface. Our soil is loam on top of sand with a high water table (we're less than a quarter mile from the lake). The area we planted it in tends to be fairly damp all season - we also have a burning bush, spireas and a japanese maple not too far away that are all flourishing (and I expect to do even better now that they'll have a full season of sun. Toronado - I've taken a couple of pictures but none of them really tell the story. I've added it, but that last maple is still there. The branches that are on the tree are the same ones that were there when we bought it. Nothing has changed with the overall structure since we bought it. BTW, the tree is about 9' tall. The leaves get about 8" long but they fall off in the fall with the actual little leaves. NHBabs - that is awesome!!! Thanks, I never would have found it on my own!!