Thank you, sarabera, for your post, any other info. would be greatly appreciated. Are you still using it, and how's the effect? Thanks.

I've attached the abstract available on Medline for this particular article. Note the date and strong caveat about making any assumptions about progesterone and bone from this particular research. A recent article pretty much disposes of any notion of osteoporosis as a disease of women of any age since the results of a recent study in Canada finds that osteoporosis is an equal opportunity disease found equally in both men and women. See: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/health and scroll down to the 7 day search box. Put osteoporosis in as your search term. Some quotes from the story: > > The findings of the Canadian Multi-Centre Osteoporosis Study, a program involving almost > 10,000 participants in nine centres across Canada, will almost certainly change the way > medical professionals deal with unexplained bone fractures in men and the way education > about the condition is handled. > > "We didn't think that men fractured," Jonathan Adachi, a rheumatologist and professor of > medicine at St. Joseph's Hospital and McMaster University, said yesterday. > > "This was unheard of in the past. No one had looked at it [osteoporosis in men] with any > seriousness. We used to think that when men fractured their hips, it was due to trauma or > long-time alcohol use, which can weaken bone density." > The study involved x-rays and bone scans on 3,000 men and 6,000 women over the age of > 50. It showed 25 per cent of the men have osteoporosis, which showed itself as spinal > fractures. The figure was the same for women. and > Osteoporosis, a condition of brittle bones caused by bone tissue loss, can be the result of > hormonal changes or lack of calcium. In the past, the condition was believed more common > in women than men because of hormonal changes during menopause. > > This new study is likely to change that belief, and with it the way health professionals educate > their patients about the disease. It should also be noted that Prior never endorsed the use of otc progesterone creams as a treatment for osteoporosis and that most of the sites selling this snake oil (including the "Women's International Pharmacy" have taken a few sentences of her research out of context in an attempt to make their case sound more scientific. Progesterone as a bone-trophic hormone. Prior JC Endocr Rev 1990 May 11:386-98 BROWSE : Endocr Rev â Volume 11 Ââ Issue 2 VIEW : MEDLINE, full MEDLINE, related records Abstract Experimental, epidemiological, and clinical data indicate that progesterone is active in bone metabolism. Progesterone appears to act directly on bone by engaging an osteoblast receptor or indirectly through competition for a glucocorticoid osteoblast receptor. Progesterone seems to promote bone formation and/or increase bone turnover. It is possible, through estrogen-stimulated increased progesterone binding to the osteoblast receptor, that progesterone plays a role in the coupling of bone resorption with bone formation. A model of the interdependent actions of progesterone and estrogen on appropriately-"ready" cells in each bone multicellular unit can be tied into the integrated secretions of these hormones within the ovulatory cycle. Figure 5 is an illustration of this concept. It shows the phases of the bone remodeling cycle in parallel with temporal changes in gonadal steroids across a stylized ovulatory cycle. Increasing estrogen production before ovulation may reverse the resorption occurring in a "sensitive" bone multicellular unit while gonadal steroid levels are low at the time of menstrual flow. The bone remodeling unit would then be ready to begin a phase of formation as progesterone levels peaked in the midluteal phase. From this perspective, the normal ovulatory cycle looks like a natural bone-activating, coherence cycle. Critical analysis of the reviewed data indicate that progesterone meets the necessary criteria to play a causal role in mineral metabolism. This review provides the preliminary basis for further molecular, genetic, experimental, and clinical investigation of the role(s) of progesterone in bone remodeling. Much further data are needed about the interrelationships between gonadal steroids and the "life cycle" of bone. Feldman et al., however, may have been prophetic when he commented; "If this anti-glucocorticoid effect of progesterone also holds true in bone, then postmenopausal osteoporosis may be, in part, a progesterone deficiency disease."

I'd suggest checking out "What your doctor didn't tell you about menopause" and "What your doctor didn't tell you about premenopause" (or something like that, I can't remember the book titles exactly), by Dr. John Lee. He gives a really good rundown on estrogen & progesterone and what they do, and how to use the creams, when, how much, etc. Cheers, JoJo (new to this forum, hello!)

Welcome to the New England forum. What a lovely yard you have! I will start by saying that I don't grow this variety of Hydrangea paniculata, though I do have 3 other selections (White Diamond, Pinky Winky, and Quickfire.) I also have put some thought and planning into screening certain views in my garden, so hopefully I can contribute something useful. IME new plants take a bit of time after initial planting to get to their ultimate shape. New plantings are putting much of their growth energy into establishing roots their first growing season. Your plants look like they are also blooming well, and IME H. paniculata varieties establish quicker than many other woody plants, so you will probably see additional vigorous top growth this coming season and thereafter. I'd wait until after the third season to decide whether they will provide the screening that you want. There is a PeeGee down the road from me that is out in the open on all sides like yours, and I will take a look at it next time I go by to see how close to the ground it wants to grow. A couple of comments about your inspiration photo (IP) vs. your situation: How sure are you that the IP is actually PeeGee? There are a bunch of different varieties of H. paniculata with somewhat different overall size; branch stiffness; blossom color, shape, and timing; and each has a slightly different look. Your photo is a bit too fuzzy to my eye to be sure which it is. Your planting situation (open on all sides) is a bit different than the IP, which is backed by other plants. This has two potential effects on the H. paniculatas in the IP which could give them a different appearance than yours (but might not given a few years of growth.) First, this type of Hydrangea prefers a lot of light and the IP's backing of taller plants may be causing the hydrangeas to reach forward and weep a bit in its effort to get more light. Second, since there is more than one layer of plants, any gaps are covered up by the plants in the background. So, what can you do? You can be patient and see how they fill in once they really get growing. You may find that given a couple of years that they do what you want without any other planting since they naturally have an arching branch form. H. paniculata responds well to hard pruning once established, and you could cut them back to below where they are currently sending out leafy branches to get them to branch out lower. This would leave you without screening for a bit when you did this, however, though they will grow back quickly (a couple of months). Or you can do what I do when I want really dense screening; I plant 2-3 layers of plants so that any gaps are filled by other plants. So, you could plant some mid-sized perennials or lower shrubs to fill in the lower gaps of your PeeGees. To make specific suggestions that would be successful we'd need more information such as whether you are willing to plant on this side of the split rail fence and how much room there is on the other side of the PeeGees before the pool deck seating area, amount of sun, and compass direction of the view from the photographer to the pool. However, I've seen photos of Hydrangea arborescens Annabelle in front of H. paniculata, and there are a number of other possible plants that might work here to provide another layer to fill in gaps if they remain. Here are a few blog posts from a Detroit area designer, Deborah Silver, that may give you some ideas. (Her favorite Hydrangea, Limelight, is another H. paniculata, so much of what she says about them would apply to your PeeGees.) Designing with Hydrangeas and here are photos of Annabelle with Limelight (fourth and fifth photos): Hydrangeas and some more photos of the same garden. You can see how having more than one kind of plant (in this case two kinds of Hydrangea) and more than one row can make for a dense planting, since I think this is just a year old. The H. paniculatas will get much taller while Annabelle will top out at 4'. These two both have info on pruning H. paniculatas Let's Talk Pruning A Second Look at Limelight Despite what she says about pruning H. paniculatas, I never prune my H. paniculatas. Here is my 6 year old Pinky Winky which has never seen pruners other than to remove the spent blossoms on the branch tips from the previous year each spring, and it is completely full all the way down to the ground. It's about 8' tall. I think that PeeGees tend to be a bit more fountain-shaped than either Limelight or Pinky Winky.