Thank you ladies for the birthday wishes! The tree is a Nyssa sylvatica (aka Black Gum, Sour Gum or Tupelo). I have 9 of them growing on my property that were here when I bought the land. Many smaller ones have popped up since. Only a few of the big ones bear fruit. They like wet or dry woodland soil, will create groves over time, and are native to E. North America. They get non-messy blue fruit in late summer/early fall, neon red or orange fall foilage that stops you in your tracks, need no pruning unless you want to, summer leaves are deep green and glossy, and they are pest free. Down side, you never see them for sale in garden centers, but I've seen them available on-line (mostly native sites) as seedlings. You can start them from seed. (OK, does anybody want seed - if I can get it before the birds do - or maybe a small seedling, as I find them?) They are bird magnets in fruit and bee/hummingbird/nectar insect magnets in bloom. They do not grow exceptionally fast, but the wildlife value is high as a food source, if they turn out to be female trees. FTM - hope you get some great photo ops when the ice closes in - I'm excited for you (and us)! Brenda - lucky you - getting regular visits from a friendly RCKinglet! They are so pretty and like many little birds have a personality, or so it seems. Jean - those holes are huge. I've not seen them before - thanks for posting them. I wonder if any will become nest sites or are they drilling for insects and sap only? I have a pair of RBW that have drilled their nest site into the top of a broken off trunk, of what was once a double trunked oak. The big oak was hit by a small tornado or something that whipped through here a few years back and it wiped out one of the two trunks. A real big tree and so high up I can see their nest hole from afar. P.S. FTM - Yes, I agree - next poster please start a Bird Sightings 3 so it will be easier for Brenda to open quicker until the broadband fairy visits her home! I wanted to put my reply post here, rather than have it look out of context as a first post on a new thread, since I added no new photos. CT

Hi every one! Can you believe it? I still cannot believe my luck and I was there!!! Again while on my way to work this morning there was someone white and *quite* chunky looking flying across the road. I pulled over, backed up a bit, and admired a stunningly beautiful snowy Owl perched on top of a utility pole. This one was much larger than the first Owl I had seen and was more heavily barred. The barring seemed darker / black. I believe this Owl was a female as her face, nape of the neck and center of the breast were white. From what I was able to research that does describe the female snowy. Maybe this was an immature but I did not find much description of them. Any way ... I am 113% sure this was another Snowy Owl! What a wonderful start to the day! As my luck would have it, I did not have my camera in the car for the past week. Had the camera been there then for sure the Owl would NOT! LOL! So that was a great start to the day. I was 20 minutes late to work but work is just soooo over-rated. LOL! The rest of the day was downhill but who cares? I saw another Snowy Owl! The Owl was about 1 mile south of the earlier sighting on Rt. 83 in N. Ridgeville again. C3D and 2 Snowy sightings this year!

yea!!! I've seen a lot of bird activity in my rose arbor. Do they start nest building this early? I've still got over a foot of snow cover. I may miss my pruning window.

Well, Judi, The Prince doesn't really like it hot and dry, so he will challenge you about that. The plant itself doesn't mind hot and dry, but the blooms burn and get weird in the heat. I should take photos nekst summer to illustrate that. In your climate, some shade might be in order, but he's a rose, so he'll need sun, too. All my roses get the same regimen: lots of water, a wonderful compost I buy (Nu Life Organic compost, if you can find it; it's a regional product), applied in late fall and into winter when the weather permits. I'm still applying it. In late February, every rose gets a good feeding of Plant Tone or Holly Tone, whichever I have on hand, and in mid March, the roses get a feeding of Lilly Miller Organic granular fertilizer for acid loving plants. My soil is alkaline so I give this fertilizer for that reason. I'm sure your soil is alkaline, too. I've repeated this regimen so many times on the forum, so if you've read it before, I apologize. My roses don't get a lot after the spring feedings. As I said, all the roses are equal to me and get the same diet. I hope you're successful with His Highness. My rose is a continuous bloomer, by the way, so he blooms a lot when it would be best for him to rest (heat). Diane