I really don't know, but my hunch is that it is some sort of mutant, just like a 4 leaf clover is not supposed to happen... if you like it you can take cuttings of it to overwinter...

Hi Suzi, Unfortunately this forum is rather on the dead side. Sounds like you found answers to your questions, and I don't know anything about So.CA LowDesert, but I'll give you some general answers, if only because I really don't want you to feel sad. Small trees and seedlings are easy to transplant. The best time to do it is around the end of winter, soon before they leaf out. Now, and for the next month is the perfect time where I live. If you're seeing budswell on your plants, then transplant them now. The key to transplanting is to bring along as many of the roots as possible. If the small weeping tree is being transplanted to elsewhere in the yard, do your best to keep the rootball intact, and plant it at the same depth that it's coming from. Have the new planting whole dug in advance to speed up the process and increase your chances of success. Mulch after planting and provide enough water over the summer that the root zone stays moist but not wet. If you (or your friends) will maintain the seedlings in containers, there are some additional factors to consider. At transplant, ideally you should bareroot them by soaking them in a tub of water and very gently removing the garden soil. Then transplant them into a good container soil. Don't let the roots dry out while you do this. Bagged container soils like Miracle Grow are not good container soils. A good place to learn more about good container soils is in the container plants forum. When you give them to your friends, be sure they know to keep them outside in a sheltered location, and provide water (but not too much) and fertilizer (but not too much). Again, any questions about these points and the container forum is a really good place to learn more. Alex

This, from the poison-ivy.org site, is similar to what I'm seeing right now; the leaves here are usually not notched. If you see hairy stems growing up a tree, it's poison ivy. More pictures here I just found this site which tellshow to differentiate between Virginia Creeper and Poison Ivy I didn't know that there's a difference between the length of the stalk of the leaflets. Poison Ivy has long petiolules while Virginia Creeper has short ones. Virginia Creeper sometimes has three leaflets, not five. If you're lucky (others may not agree) you may have lots of Virginia Creeper, not Poison Ivy. That about exhausts what I know. I probably overreact and pull out too much. Claire

I planted about 350 seeds at the end of March. I had one seedling with three cotyledons and another with one normal cotyledon and one cotyledon which was a Siamese twin (y-shaped). As it happened, the three-cotyledon seed was culled -- I think because its fellows of that variety were larger. However, its three-cotyledon status should not be blamed; many things this year were not ideal, including having my appendix removed just when I should have been potting up. [Yeah, that is way too many seeds, but I'd never grown tomatoes from seed before -- or grown anything in the basement under lights -- and didn't expect much success. Several dozen of the better-looking extras were donated to a charity plant sale.]