Add me to that list of having tons of PVSs this summer. Linda, it was also my third year for the A. clematitis. My A. tomentosas are just bursting with growth right now. But, as you might recall, I planted them in pots for their first year, unlike the A. macrophyllas that I planted directly in the ground. However, one of my macrophyllas already has put out a sucker - YIPPEE! A. macrophylla is probably more suited to your area, Maryann. It's a better PV for the north than the other ones. Oh, and I know they are trying to re-establish A. serpentaria up there, too. Seems most of the colonies of that species died out, so you would be helping to repopulate your area with this species by planting it in your garden. Susan

as a reply to you rfirst message where you asked for a reply. So send me an email and I can tell you what I could do or what you yourself could do. It is a 200 km trip for me. You're unlucky btw: I ventured into the same forest with my girlfriend this time yesterday, so I could have tried to do whatever youwant me to because...What is scionswood? I want to learn an English word thats new to me :-) Another possibilty could be to enter the forest and get some seedlings from beneath the tree but of course success is not guaranteed, certainly not copaired to a graft. Seedlings is easy: first of all there are thousands and thousands of them. You stumble over them and really must be carefull not to tremple hundreds of the down. The soil is very loose, you can get them out without damaging the roots too much or even really. Without any tools you can get the smaller ones out. My grilfriend nd I wnet to a coiuple of forests. It is not really her interest, but even she was really excited about this forest or this part of the forest. Kuinderbos revisted,now in the right place: Picea Sitchensis is dying here, I though because of the green spruce aphid.No North American undergrowth too be seen: such a lot of bramble.. Anyway: contact me via the email I send you and I will seewhat I can do.

blumz, sometimes bluebirds do "change partners". Nothing you can do about that~ Is there any chance you could put another nestbox up on the other side of your house, so that these pairs won't see eachother? I have bluebirds nesting in my front yard, and another pair in the back yard. Technically, the boxes are no where near far enough apart - BUT, they can't see eachother and are on different nesting schedules and things have worked out fine. The front yard pair is currently laying their second clutch of eggs after having a fledging of four babies two weeks ago. The back yard pair has 5 eggs that should hatch any day now. They fledged 5 kids the week before the front yard kids flew. I feed them in different areas and they each have their own bath, so their paths don't cross too often. My house keeps them from seeing eachother, though each definitely knows the other is there and they do get nosy and go visiting once in a while! I am wondering if soon, when the next rounds of babies are keeping the adults busy, if the first broods of kids will just join up and be one group of teenagers. Right now they stay separated and eat only at the feeding stations their parents eat from. I hope you can find a way to work this out so everyone can nest. It will soon be over and they can play nice with eachother again! Malinda

Sorry, it’s been a long day. A lot of people here today, the designer and a team from the contractor and my head is spinning. As it turns out, you were all right. The designer arrived with 10ft of floor space instead of 7ft, needed by the staircase, which I was pretty frustrated about. Rebunky, I forgot to ask about the fire code but there’s no concern there, because the stairway and entry will be completely walled off from the garage. I don’t want an open stairway in the garage to the apartment. The garage will have an opener with a remote, so there should be no problem walking into the garage to access their storage. At this point, Sena, I’m feeling a little lack of trust in the figures and I’m going to have to have him confirm every measurement I’m using. I haven’t sat down to think about the layout again today. We had a lot to go over today and that was just one of many. As soon as I can, I’ll look it over again and see what I am willing to do to accommodate that. I am not going to go for part of the stairway on a second wall. I’d still like to see if I could keep the stairway in the middle and out of the bedroom and living room. Which would probably mean starting the stairway back on the North wall all the way in the corner, but I need a 5ft landing on the garage level, then 10ft of stairway and a landing at the top. So if I add 4ft so a total of 33ft in length, maybe that would get the stairway in the middle? That’s it for me tonight. Thanks for checking in with me.