Not a tree, but I love the fall color of Viburnum lantanoides. In cooler climates, they start to change by the end of august, turning pink, then burgundy, then yellow, then brown by the end of summer. Restore, I live in Central Indiana also - Yes, the usual clay soil is a bit of a pain, but the alluvial floodplain soils are a pleasure to garden in. A fairly large creek goes across our property, and it floods a bit every year, depositing more rich, black silt. Most trees grow excellently. The forest is mostly elms, ash, and hackberry - Some sugar maple, tons of basswood. The soil never dries out completely - I'm afraid I've kind of neglected the claybound front yard and put all my effort into the floodplain!

Mary, You shouldn't have a problem with the banana shrubs like you would with plumbago. Plumbago isn't really hardy here. But if your banana shrub is really small you may want to pot it and bring it in for the first winter. That's what I did with the ones I rooted. I love plumbago but they don't really come back for me. Maybe 1 in 8 will come back. There is a lady in town here that has them all over her yard. She says they come back with no problem. Maybe it's cause the other houses block the wind and the streets hold the heat at night, I don't know.

Falling asleep at the wheel may be caused by 'sameness', no variance in your environment, coupled with a constant drone of vehicular noise. When this happens to you with no traffic around you, it is sometimes called "highway hypnosis". Some drivers get lured into this condition by the steady passing of the dashed center line. Not enough sleep/rest the night before is a factor. Low blood sugar is a possibility. I don't know any cure. I only know what works for me. it helps if I stop, and exercise a bit to increase my blood circulation - wake up the body. The exercise can be as simple as brisk walk or trot around the parking lot. If you still feel sleepy, its time to park it and catch a nap. The company I worked for (before retiring) was working on a "drowsy driver detection" system mainly for the trucking industry. They were doing research to find what to monitor to detect when a driver was about to nod off. I'm not privy to all the details, but I think a couple of items were the driver's eyelids and head tilt. It had to work without attaching anything to the driver. One hurdle was to get drivers to accept the system. Many saw it as an invasion of 'their space" and a fear that the data would be collected and used against them. This work took place several years ago, and I don't know the outcome. I have seen no announcements or advertisements.

I only go to sleep in minutes if I am VERY tired. OTOH, if I am truly EXHAUSTED, it takes longer. (Go figure.) I didn't have a problem until post-menopause. Now I have a generic for Ambien 5 mg that I will take if I can't get to sleep within an hour or can't get back to sleep if I wake before 3 a.m. (One or the other -- not two pills in one night.) I used the Ambien Monday night on the redeye home from Hawaii and got a good four hours more than my DH. Next time I'm going to add the blindfold to see if I can get even more.