Hi Ken; I was going to post a question about this tree, but hope it is okay to respond here. I found a nursery close to me that says they have this tree in stock. I've never personally seen one, but think they are really neat. I'm wondering how fast yours grows and how much sun you have it in? I was thinking of growing it under the canopy of my large Ash tree. It's up around 30' to the branches on the Ash in the area I'd like to grow this tree. I'd also consider Bonsai type trimming / shaping on the tree (I know if I start reshaping the tree, it will likely be a lifetime of maintenance for the tree) to keep the size reasonable. Think I could make it work? The look would be really cool, if I could keep it a manageable size. Which I'd think would be possible with heavy early spring pruning each year. If it got too tall, I'd have to top it, but since I'm taking about keeping it on the smaller side anyway and heavily pruned, I'm not sure it would be a big deal to top it. This is the spot I had my Japanese Maple in, which died over the winter. Jamie

Thanks for looking. Sorry if my post was too long, just trying to give enough information. Burying trees in pots is recommended in several bonsai books I've been reading. It acts as a raised bed of sorts and allows the plant to remain in a pot but still recieve several benefits of being planted in the ground. (Also recommended by my local nurseryman.) Allowing the roots to grow out of the holes in the bottom of the pot isn't a concern as the root ball is only about the size of a softball, but is mostly small fine roots. Thanks again for looking. Blake

Ron, I'm sorry your obsession with the faulty 1990 USDA zone map seems to impede your ability to make educated guesses about plant performance based on more specific climatic data available from the Western Regional Climate Center and other sources. Let's start with Leavenworth's all time low: -36F. Then consider that these maples occur at much higher altitudes (another factor that cannot possibly be considered by the map, since all the weather stations in that area are in the valleys), up to at least 4,000', so they can probably live through colder temperatures than what Leavenworth experiences. And then let's not forget that some plants have more vestigal cold hardiness than they need to survive where they are native, from a time when our climate was much colder. Considering all those factors together, I think it's a safe bet that bigleaf maples from central Washington can survive most, if not all winters in zone 5, and may be growable in parts of zone 4 as well.

Devildog, there's a BIG difference in those who pay C.O.D. by choice and those who are there because the wholesaler, guniter, redimix company etc... placed them there due to the inability to make delinquent invoices good. IMO, this is the biggest reason that they'll come out and TOTALLY lowball a project. The need for cash money becomes a complete necessity when you have no available credit. quote" If all distributors demanded C.O.D., They and homeowners would not be sweating bullets like they are now. "quote I disagree. My wholesaler (the largest in the world) and my guniter know which companies they can trust to have higher than the average companies balances. They and my buyers have confidence in my organization, I also have some really good competitors they trust too. We enjoy a very large portion of marketshare and don't drop our shorts for potential buyers when they give us lowball feedback from those other builders. I could never make it on cash terms because of the volume of my business. In an average busy season week I'll dig, steel, gunite, plumb, wire, brick and tile, pour concrete, plaster, and cleanup 2 pools plus purchase 2 equipment sets at an average of $8000 each. This will be at typically 10 different jobsites. If I had to drop everything to run checks I wouldn't get any of my work done or I'd have to hire a fulltime man just to run by sites to drop off checks. There are a bunch of invoices at the end of every week that I have to make good. I learned a long time ago that I'll never collect all the money at once and I'll never pay all my bills on the spot. Thats why having good terms with my service providers and suppliers is very important. My company pays these invoices and weekly payroll first, equipment and truck note second, shop note light/phone bill third, insurance fourth, and if there's any money left me fifth. The truth of the matter is that I haven't paid myself my monthly salary for Nov. Dec. or Jan. yet due to cash flow -VS- incurred costs of conducting business when your only digging a few pools a month like I did in the last quarter of '08. I've hammered away at my savings account to pay all my household bills. It's OK though because I just gunited 2 pools last week and have 3 to dig and gunite this week. It doesn't take but a few weeks of a workload like this to get you back in the game. I'm sorry you misunderstood the intent of my statement. See ya, Kelly