What diversity! >^..^50 yo female, married 27 years this August. 3 "kids".... 19 yo daughter (who works 1 1/2 jobs & is going back to college in fall & just got her own apt), 21 yo son in Guam (Navy) and 23 yo daughter married/living in Long Island-wants to go to flight school. 3 kitties. Love your pet pics! I'm a fulltime 1:1 Teaching Assistant in our school district, working in a regular classroom with students who have special needs. In summer I work with OCM BOCES doing the same (summer school). My students keep me running (often literally!) Gary (hubby) is so excited now that spring has FINALLY arrived, as he just tolerates his job, and detests winter...so he lives for the sounds of birds, and gardening and riding his motorcycle! Oh, and we are involved in our church-ushering, working with kids programs, taking care of the rose/perennial garden we planted there 5 years ago, and also do motorcycle day trips with about 25 friends there. :0) Phyl

Almost any tree peony will stutter for the first couple of years until it becomes settled in place. Although one of my friends does some grafting for Cricket Hill I would suggest for your first tree peony try one of the most common Fen Dan Bai or Phoenix White. It grows quickly has a nice white flower with scent. The darker the flower the more quickly it will mature in warm temperatures. The dark red that I love I plant in shade or at least where the western sun does not hit them during the blooming season. For your reference there are only a few retail nurseries that grow tree peonies and ship. The older plants available are generally too heavy to ship with the shipping charges larger than the price of the plants. If you can take a driving trip you can pick up and not have the shipping charges. Tree Peony Garden if the one in PA has a reputation of having excellent plants. There are several nurseries on the net with the same name in other countries. Carol Adelman of Adelman Peony Gardens has started selling tree peonies. This is the first year but based on her normally peony plants they should be good. Understand will be bare root on own roots. Rick Rogers of Brothers Tree Peony is where I purchase some of my tree peonies. His are in pots. Mostly American types. Some still on grafts but many on own root. He will answer questions even if you do not purchase from him. He is also looking for 50+ year old tree peonies to graft from. He must be able to identify the tree peony. Father is Allen Rogers. Klehm's/Song Sparrow has tree peonies in the past only sent potted but are now doing some bare root after frost. Check this forum for others such as 4 Iris in California.

I agree that for the most part, what trees you like are a matter of taste. That said, there are some trees that, while having some nice ornamental properties are highly invasive. Chinaberry, Ligustrum and Chinese Tallow (another "evil" one) are extremely invasive around here, displacing native species. I think most of us can agree that's a bad thing. I also agree with Lou that over planting any variety of tree, native or not can be a bad thing. Ask anyone in the northern part of the country where American Elm was the dominant boulevard tree if a little more variety wouldn't have been nice when the majority of them succumbed to Dutch Elm disease in the 80's. Like the Live Oak around here, it was a quality, native tree that was just over-used. I hope our neighborhood never experiences Oak Wilt since the builder planted Live Oaks almost exclusively and they are mostly now 20' to 30' trees, along with some mature ones that were preserved. I'm seeing Monterrey Oaks planted more and more, which I find encouraging as they are supposed to be wilt resistant and are also evergreen or nearly so. Bug-the reason I dislike AZ Ash, above all else, is the root system. We have a neighbor that has one on the west side of their house that's about 25' tall, so it's giving off nice shade. The problem is the roots are on top of the ground everywhere, including large ones pushing up against their foundation. I can't see that situation getting any better... If in doubt, go over to Dave's Garden and check out some of the pictures and reviews of AZ Ash. I think if TX Ash was more widely available and it was more well known it would help. People are going to keep planting AZ Ash and its cultivars if nurseries and the big boxes keep selling them. After all, they wouldn't be selling it if it was a "trash" tree, would they? ;^)

A couple years after the article Sharon posted was published. This was published. I can’t link to it since I am searching for these articles through my workplace at Caltech, and you would get a broken link, but here is abstract copied below. It seems that an important consideration for a banker plant used to host the predator mites is “tuft domatia”, which are little chambers on the leaves that are meant to house the beneficials. The plants provide little hidey-houses along with pollen :-) The predator mite Amblyseius swirskii is an omnivore, eating both pollen and other mites, thrips, whitefly etc. Selecting an ornamental pepper banker plant for Amblyseius swirskii in floriculture crops. By: Avery, PB et al. Abstract: Preference of phytoseiid mite, Amblyseius swirskii (Athias-Henriot) was assessed on four cultivars of ornamental pepper banker plant candidates; Red Missile (RM), Masquerade (MA), Explosive Ember (EE) and Black Pearl (BP) for potential control of pestiferous insects in floriculture. Significant differences in cultivar preference by A. swirskii was observed in choice experiments whether the test was pre- (with pollen) or during bloom. Overall, female mites laid more eggs when pollen was provided as a food source. The number of tuft domatia per cultivar leaf appeared to positively influence host preference in the choice plant tests pre-bloom. In addition, cultivar RM had the highest mean number +/- A SEM of tuft domatia per leaf (5.1 +/- A 0.3) and motiles per plant (4.0 +/- A 1.2), followed by MA, EE and BP. In choice tests on blooming plants, A. swirskii showed preference for both cultivars RM and MA compared to EE. These experiments indicated that the number of tuft domatia and availability of pollen can influence the host preference of A. swirskii for an ornamental pepper banker plant cultivar. Results from this study will help growers, researchers, educators and extension personnel in understanding the plant phenology promoting adoption of suitable banker plants for managing greenhouse and landscape insect pests.