I know what you mean about being hard to cut these babies back. Today, I filled two large buckets with blooms that I cut off of my plants....pink, white, yellow, peach... I must admit, I left several white brug bushes still standing completely covered with flowers and buds, as they just don't have the scent that I want, and are fairly "ordinary". I dug up 4 others brugs today, and took cuttings of several others. These cuttings I placed into an old aquarium with a bubbler placed in the garage. Within 3 or 4 days, the white nubbies will be showing, and then I will pot the cuttings up. I believe there is a photo of some of the cuttings already potted up at: http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/brug/msg100814116102.html?12 You will note that the cuttings are as large as I can get if I want to make a tree format for next year. As I mentioned, I also dug up several plants today. Some of these were 6 feet tall, and when potted are taller than I am. I put them into new soil, gave them a thorough watering, and set them in a shady spot for the already existing roots to establish themselves. I believe we are in for another few weeks of fair weather, so they will stay outside until it becomes too cold, and then I'll bring them in to the garage for the cold nights. Later, I'll take the already established plants to the basement where I'll let them go dormant ( in a room that is cool but will not freeze). The cuttings I will take inside and place in a bright area until the roots have formed, and then I will place them in a sunny location or under lights. I should have mentioned, make sure you spray with a soapy solution all the leaves (top and bottom) for bugs, and then hose that solution off before bringing them in to the house. You do NOT want an infection of spider mites or mealy bug this coming winter. Do this with your cuttings as well as your potted plants. With respect to yours, it all depends on the structure you like to see. I have some bushes, and some tree forms. Personally I like the tree forms, so I keep my eyes open for a long straight stem that I can use. Sometimes it is in the middle of a plant, and in that case, I trim off the outer branches and use them for cuttings. Sometimes ( most often ) it is an offshoot from the root that springs forth as straight as an arrow. In this case, I will make a cutting of it. When cutting back, if you wish to retain the parent plant for next year, be certain that you do not cut beneath the "Y", or you will have to wait much longer to get a bloom. When making cuttings, try to maintain some "Y"'s at the top end, and take the cutting from above the "Y". When you read the links, you will see what we mean by the "Y". Since you have blooms now, you already will know what the "Y" is all about. Good luck.

Sassy... since you haven't used it, it may help to know how it works. Preen is a pre-emergent... it tell seeds not to germinate. It is pretty effective. We have more garden than we can really take care of, particularly as we spend a lot of time in spring getting ready for our annual sale and can't stay on top of all the weeding. I am careful using it around youngish plants... it is not supposed to affect growing plants, but some have noted a tendency for it to retard the growth of a young plant. it will also keep your hosta seeds from germinating - it wasn't until we didn't get around to using it for a couple of years that I realized just how easily hostas reseed. I'm told that weed seeds will pile up and when you quit using the Preen, you will have a big weed bloom. Don't know if this is true. We've had good luck combining the Preen with Pine Bark Nugget mulch. We lay down newspaper, then mulch... and then toss Preen into the mulch to retard the growth of the weed seeds that fall into the spaces in the mulch.

I just took a look at that website. It said our home was worth about $179,000--we just sold it (haven't even gone to settlement yet) for just under $200,000. Another house, a block from me was zillowed at $190,000--they sold about 6 months back for $140,000--and had a hard time getting that. The prices for other houses in my neighborhood were similarly all over the place--some were at least $50,000 too low, others were way high. Your agent should be providing a whole stack of comparables. We've had 2 agents in the past year, each supplied us with about a dozen recently sold properties that were similar to ours, so we could evaluate the current local market. Personally? I'm not sure I'd go with an auctioneer/agent. Seems a little iffy to me. I'd further recommend that they use an agent affiliated with one of the large chains, the kind that specialize in both local sales and relocation sales. For our first agent, we went with an older, established 'little' firm--thinking age and experience were the way to go. Didn't do us much good. This time around? We went with young and hungry (our agent is about 30, and a real go-getter) who's with one of the huge chains that does a lot of relocation sales. And we sold in 6 weeks, in THIS economy! For a lot more than we expected to get for our house. Can you suggest to your parents that they talk to at least 3 or 4 different agents, from different agencies, so they can make a more informed choice on who will best represent them? I have a feeling, that if they talk to almost anyone else, this guy will be out the door.

Thank you for all of the responses. Wanted to respond to a couple of the questions/wonderings. Our agent has made several other changes, so I do not believe she just trying to save money by not making changes to our listing. I agree that technically a cul-de-sac should have a turnaround (hence the name), but as another poster pointed out, Dictionary.com includes "dead end" in their definition of a cul-de-sac. I suspect that the term has evolved over time yet also has some regional influence on it's meaning. So what I have done is find all the listings in my suburb marked as being on a cul-de-sac, yet don't appear from the map to have a turnaround. I will drive around tomorrow (SAHM who need to keep these kids out of the staged house anyway!) and check out these so-called cul-de-sacs. I'll also try to find some houses for sale on dead end streets (with no turnarounds) to see if they are listed as being on a cul-de-sac. Based on my findings, we'll go from there. As for the Sales History, I've also gone through several listings in my suburb to look up their sales history, versus what is available on our assessor's website. While a close match, I did find four that did have sales history on the assessor's office website, but not realtor.com. Strangely, they did have tax info. I am considering JAMIES idea to fudge or omit the parcel id on the MLS if possible - maybe I can get my agent to check out those 4 properties on the MLS and see if their parcel id's are correct. I actually have used our assessor's public data quite extensively in successfully appealling our property taxes. I used the sales history for comps, which is what you are supposed to do in appealing one's taxes. That is why our's is labeled "unqualified" because it does not qualify as a comp. Will continue to research this, but some of your posts have helped me feel better about the info being out there. If in the end there is nothing we can do, so be it. We're happy to explain the situation to any potential buyer who's wondering. Thanks for all your comments! (Thanks! to AnnKathryn for the info on emailing Zillow - will have to try that, too)