Hey, Mike. I remember my mother's frustration as the Ivy climbed the back of our three story brick house. It literally ate holes in the bricks. I don't know who planted it or how it was eventually killed (I was married and living out west) but the damage was not pretty. The dead vines had to be rubbed off with a wire brush. Maryo, I really don't want to point anyone out. It is partly frustration and partly a holdover from Master Gardeners. I feel compelled to pass on information. I remember being upset a few years ago when the local nurseries were selling Virginia Creeper and ivies as ground cover. My worst fears are realized. Over the years I have seen only one place where it is under control and there it is isolated and brutally cut by a homeowner who must be obsessive-compulsive. He mows and trims and sprays the edges of the planting beds weekly with a chemical edger and checks the yard carefully every day. I doubt the average home owner has the devotion to perfection I see there. It is fascinating to watch the results. I commend him for his devotion but I would miss flowers. He has only shrubs, grass and a tree in an island of the ivy but they are perfect. The drought and heat wave is really doing a number on this state. The cost will be in the mega-millions just in crop loss. Some places are reporting water usage is up by 110% and they are curtailing watering yards. The city opened "cooling stations", auditoriums and halls where people who were stressed by the heat could get some relief but only a handful of people showed up. That is strange.

Brandon, as one of the 3 you must be referring to, I certainly would never use another name to post something and doubt anyone else would bother. I do have to wonder why anything you've posted on this topic would get anyone PO'd unless they already felt they had a score to settle. I'll give you my vote on this one if you want it. Anyway, back to the issue of mulch over the root ball. To me the issue isn't the percentage of the entire planting hole that matters during the most critical first month or two of establishment. At that time I expect the vast majority of water being supplied to the tree comes from the roots in the rootball and not the first flush of growing tips going into the new soil. I could be wrong. If the mulch applied was something like partially rotted arborist chips, it could supply a substantial reservoir of water, reducing the frequency of watering required far beyond the ability to minimize evaporation. Capillary pull should allow the tiny feeder roots that form on the mulch-soil interface to bring water from the chips to the tree. The author of the guide never provided me with a description of the mulch used in the study- but many organic mulches, including shredded wood and straw, do not hold much water. Shredded wood, in fact, has a strong tendency to mat up and repel water. Another issue I think unresolved by the research is whether the insulation provided by mulch could be helpful when placed over the root ball. I don't know what species were used in the experiments but species vary widely in terms of temps roots function best in. Tropical species tend to like warmer soil, of course, but even amongst the fruit trees I grow in my nursery, there's quite a range of preference and none function as well once soil temps get into the 80's. This would throw a lot of untested variables into the whole idea of mulching, but mulch will always make temps cooler and more stable. The trees I plant in the fall, when I do most of my installations of trees from my nursery, may well benefit from mulching the root balls by stabelizing soil temps when snowfall is inadequate to do so. This may protect roots near the surface from extreme cold and also help prevent the root ball from being pushed out of the soil by the freeze-thaw cycles common in areas with real winter. I'm awaiting the results of similar experiments done in more northern areas, and also with trees adequately irrigated, before I change my methods.

BJ--thank you for those updates. I have to admit I've felt a little blue ever since reading them, though. I'm sorry to have not been here when happyto lost her husband. I remember that he was struggling with his health. And yes, "yummers." I remember your airplanes, too, and Michelle and I had once exchanged Christmas cards before losing touch. I still remember what her family looked like. I hope everything worked out OK for them. Time really flies. I know your heart is breaking over Baby V. I have a good friend who fostered a baby from the time he was just a couple of weeks old until he was 16 months. She was single, so we (her girlfriends) all pitched in and he was almost as much a part of our family as one could ever imagine. She thought she was on a track to adopt him, but in the very week that the parental rights were to be officially terminated (after which my friend could begin the adoption process formally), his grandmother from 800 miles away applied to foster him. (Not adopt him.) I couldn't believe she would leave him in foster care that long and then just pop in at the last possible moment. My friend tried to make an appeal through the court system at the parents' termination hearing, but she was told foster parents don't have any rights in the relationship. She had to just sit silently, and then hand him over at the end. She was the only mom he had known at that point, and it was devastating for all of us. It could only get harder the more time you have with him, I imagine. But knowing he would be going to a loving home where he would be a priority helps so much. Not the same when he's obviously someone's afterthought. That hurts.

And you know what else it isn't about? The OP's relationship with his wife. Reading Chase's post about there being a tradition of the groom's mother and bride's father walking out together made me see this differently, even though I agree that no rule in the world is going to make a difference in this situation, and even though I still would give the OP the same advice. What made me think about this is the brief detour into discussing Jewish weddings, where all the parents escort and stand with the couple. Obviously, where there are remarriages and stepparents, this could get complicated. But people manage just fine, and the reason, I realized, is that they are participating as their children's parents, not as their current spouses' escorts. If both parents are alive, they participate as usual; if one is dead, the surviving parent does, sometimes with a stepparent, especially if that stepparent helped raise the child. Most people handle it graciously even where there are hard feelings between ex-spouses, because they both still are parents to their child, and new spouses understand that this isn't about them, it's about the parent-child relationship. It's the same thing here: the OP will be participating in the wedding as the bride's father, not as his wife's husband. We have no way of knowing if the bride would not have asked for exactly the same thing were the OP still happily married to her mom, whom she adored (and maybe she does indeed love her stepmother). Especially now that I know that in some weddings, this is even seen as traditional, I would not take it as symbolic of anything about the OP's marriage, much less a slap to anyone. After all, he is planning on walking down the aisle with his daughter, not his wife, for the processional -- and that doesn't seem to bother anyone (except maybe me, but that's a whole different story!) -- I mean, no one sees that as "ditching" his wife. His walking out with the groom's mother wouldn't be, either. I still think that this bride is kind of juvenile in her choices. But as I suggested earlier, the OP is being pretty self-centered himself if he thinks anyone is going to be focusing on him or his marriage. It's just not about him. If there really is a problem in this family about the OP's remarriage, the daughter's wedding is not the time, after 12 years, to be working it out.