I can't promote selling anything on this forum -- couldn't sell chickens by mail order anyway. People come to the farm to pick up the freshly processed poultry. We take them to a state-inspected facility to be butchered. I am not ready for that yet and probably will never be!!!! You can check out my website for more information. Here is a link that might be useful: Tasty Chickens

I think your description of the rumors is very good - they ran rampant last spring - and I suspect the truth is much more mundane. Certainly there were personal and professional issues involved in his move. A more reasonable question might be why Hans would have stayed with one local specialized wholesaler for such a long time. Shady Oaks still concentrates on hostas and, though they have expanded into some other plants, their selection is still quite limited. Walters, on the other hand, may offer the widest range of perennials of any wholesaler in the US. I know Hans has developed interests beyond the world of hostas, and his opportunity to explore other plants would have been much more limited had he stayed at SO. I stopped at Walters last summer on the way to the convention and fell into spending a couple of hours touring around the farms with the president of the company. They were excited to have Hans, primarily for his interest in some other plants beyond the hostas... So... without participating in the rumor mill... I'm excited for Hans to have the resources of Walters to explore his interests... and yet as a Minnesotan, I was sorry to see him go. And to remain OT, I like HOSTAS, but ligularias in my sandy soil tend to droop so dramatically at the slightest bit of brighter light or heat, I only grow the species plant ligularia przewalskii. It tolerates dry conditions much better than the bigger leaved, more dramatic ones. It has smallish leaves with neat cut edges, so it has its own charm. Nice companion for HOSTAS.

I am still amazed! First they said an inch or two for today, then it went up to 4 inches, then 6 inches which wouldn't have been bad. Then this morning I heard 12 inches and we got every bit of that 12 inches!! Probably more. Pris I envy you! We get lots of snow of course, but good gosh since Christmas it has been non stop! Like every stinking week-end. It gets old really fast even though we are used to it. Of course I had plans today and by 11 am couldn't even get my car out of the garage, I know I'd have gotten stuck. DH is gone with the 4 wheel drive. The experts are now talking flooding again this spring like last year. My county is still trying to fix all the damages done almost a year ago. I am desperately hoping we skip spring this year and go directly to JULY!!!!!!! Now that is my kinda weather.

Lydia, It's pretty cold in Omaha compared to SL in those months. Compared to the early 80's , I personally think the snow fall has been much less. Still, there are weeks where the snow and ice never melt. Luckly Omaha is fairly well equipt for bad winter weather, plenty of snow plows, sand, etc.. Years ago after moving here as a teen, I lived about 1 1/2 hours away from Omaha. Didn't know much about snow and didn't have a garage for my car. It was brutal scraping my car off some days. If the weather permits, I would recommend at least coving the front of the car with a tarp. Sometimes life comes to a halt if the snow is really bad, everyone trys to stay home. It depends but I'm guessing maybe 3 times a winter it gets bad enough for school to be out. Our superintendent is always the last one to call school off tho. I recall last year the buses going into ditches because of the ice and finally he calls school off. The electricity failed in our building, which made it impossible for the lunch ladies to make lunch, they were so bent out of shape. The kids that made it were loving it. What will your DD be doing in Omaha, Lydia?