No soil, that is small parts of the barks. If I add any fine partical it will flow to the bottum and cause a perched water table. That size bark is good to use by itself. I use this as a soilless medium in 2 gal containers with a hydroponic fertilizer program. I would never add any fine partical to this ever. Homehydro, Thanks for the tip on the perlite, lucky me I have some now. Don't you use hydrogen peroxide? I do at all times, every water and fertilize I put H2o2 in the water before my nutes. When using H2o2 if you smell the roots, they will smell life fresh radishes. Compaired to the brown roots in a none treated system. Please look up how to use it all time in your system because once you see you will never stop using it. I am all drain to waste, no pumps so fine particals that come of the bark will not matter. I have only tapla to thank over in the container forum for inspiring me. Now I am waiting for the same place I got it to get more of the mulch in.

Miss Watanabe . what kind of pro japaneaes gardeners you are talking about ? traning we had in past, first few years of apprentice year we could not toucth pine trees, even can not stand and watch while older gardner or Oyakata is working on pine tree. I am suporse to be working not wacthing and lean. I take some of pine tree branch back to home and figured out how to prune pine tree by well trained gardeners. next time when you go to Japan visit nurseies and wacth how to train pine tree or any other trees in nusery feild and lean how to train and shape of trees. visiting temples , estabilshed private home gareden , most of traing of tree had been done at feild . that the why you do not see hinoki cypres or sugi logs and bamboo pole to train large trees. many of pine tree in feild start to train some where 8 to 12 yeras old pine tree tree and takes another 5 to 8 years to be ready for sale. you have not seen those proses and making buxx shxt coments . you are only see tree in estabilished garden. what make you think pine tree or any other garden trees without small diameter logs and bamboo can be bent ? if you give me any name of so called pro gardener , just give me name of those who can work /shape tree without bamboo pole, twine . we do not use bamboo pole or twine to shape those shurbs azlea, nandina , akuba etc. you are making groundless opinins much like previuos posting about death of seno rikyu . I have a friend who is borad member of Japan nusery association / Nihon ueki kyokai in saitama and I am going to see him this augst at SNA/ southern nuserserymen association, when he speaks even DR micheal Dirr listen to him. I do not know know how long you have been working this nusery trade or landscape trade , if you have self confident , tell me where you have been working and when. all information you have writeing dose not indicate professional knolege at all. are you a artist ? are you a one of those gaijin who can not speak, nor understand japanse but wachted how to prune pine trees few occations ? or takeing tourists to temples or home garden and takeing few japanaese garden class ? you have not worked as gardener everyday. we can go back Nobedan/chiri arttilces, Hoju/ giboju artikles, or bamboo pruning 2~ 3years back issue. perhaps relationship between buddism and Japanese gardens tea cermony flower arrengement, or tsukugai articles. Miss watanabe you pick any of past topic of jojg , we can test each others knowlege about japanese gardens. I let's you pick one you like. or we start with sen no rikyu's death, how why he had to die. do you want to rewrite? or change stories ? ........ or you can beg to spike to remove my posting... if spike remove my posting , I write other web site about jojg article without any limits. Do you want to keep this subject of pruning with or whithout bamboo poles and tieng ? should we go back some of your previuos posting ? I let's you pick topick you like to debate. you had chance to let't this die down .but you have been keep asking me back to this. now you have it. mike yamakami

Well, I've called all around and any of the wood "reclamation" companies aren't real interested in pine boards. Those that may be would require me to take it all down, sort by size and stack and bind all the boards up for shipping, and they're in different states I figure they're not going to pay much if anything for it once they figure their transportation costs. I could give it to habitat for humanity I guess, but again, someone would have to carefully dismantle it all, stack and take it there and we don't have a truck. I was hoping against hope there would some company out there that would come and take it down and haul it away - I'd give it to them for free just for their labor. Now if it was cherry, or hickory or something interesting like barn siding I think I'd have some takers! :-)

I love white. I've always loved white. It's my favorite color . . . and no comments about it actually being the absence of color; I know what it is technically, but it's still my favorite color. Because of that, we have some pretty white (well, warm cream) rooms in our home. And they work wonderfully . . . with some reservations ;^D First of all, we're not weird, uptight or O/C about cleaning. In fact, we're probably a bit more laid back than many people. We love putting our feet up on our sofas and coffee tables, read in bed on top of the comforters any time we feel like it (which is a lot, being a family of book lovers), and eat in pretty much every room except bathrooms (LOL). The reservations? Wall color: All walls are painted a warm cream color in a good quality, washable paint. Stark white, which has a blue cast to it, would be too cold and harsh IMO. The positive: our art work looks great and so do we in rooms that color. I think the right warm cream walls makes everybody look better. And, I like the sereneness it adds to the rooms. Plus, adobe walls look gorgeous painted a warm cream and most homes tend to paint them like that. here's the foyer to our MBR, as an example: The negative: our dobie leans up against the walls to catch the warm sun and leaves dirty areas on the walls. With very washable paint, though, I just wash it off but it does happen with great regularity. The reality is that it would happen even if the walls were any not-dark color. The furniture: I have two matching cream colored linen blend sofas in our living room and I LOVE them. We bought them in June 2003 and they still look great. I have them professionally cleaned every year, but we do use this room daily, to read, visit, listen to music and/or look at the views (which are killer from there). But, I would never have a white or light colored rug or floor anywhere! All our floors are brick. This is a real adobe home in the mountains of New Mexico. We track in a lot of dirt, but most stops at the mats by every door. We pretty much never take off our shoes when we come inside, though. I do have a rule of no shoes on the furniture or beds, but that's it. No big dogs on the furniture either, but this doesn't include our 11-pound Tibetan Spaniel who's an inside dog. She doesn't leave dirt, as we wash her frequently, but she does leave a LOT of dog hair. I'm not obsessive about it and vacuum it off once a week. Negatives: with white/cream sofas, you need a fabric that you can easily wash most spots off with water. Our is like that; without it, they would be a nightmare to keep clean! If you have dogs you allow to lie on sofas, white ones are not practical. If you have kids, you'd better have a family room with sturdy, dark colored furniture, as well. My two kids have always used our family room to watch TV and hang out with family and friends in. I was smart not to have a TV in the living room, but we all do head out there to read, etc. As for little kids and white, DD wrote all over my white sofas twice with a ballpoint pen when she was three and once with a stick of blue chalk. All three times required professionally cleaning, but it did come out . . . thankfully! Cabinets, etc. When we had this house built, all our custom cabs were white-washed pine (supposed to be ash, but that's another story). They looked great in the beginning, but yellowed after a while which wasn't pretty. I've since been told that the yellowing is pretty common, so take heed if you're thinking of going that route. They look dirty and /or worse quicker with fingerprints, chips and the like. They also look more casual than what we ultimately wanted. So, our family room has cream walls, but sturdy Western brown leather furniture, brick floors and a dark Oriental rug. After 14 years with the white-washed cabs in the kitchen, we had them torn out and new dark cherry ones installed. Still kept the cream walls, and brick floors and went with bright New Mexican accessories. The living room has cream colored walls and sofas, with dark tapestry throw pillows, brick floors, dark Oriental rug, and dark tables and chairs. All 3 bathrooms have cream walls, brick floors and white-washed cabs (that we still have to eventually replace). All the accents are dark colors in 2 and pastel in ours. BTW, in this pic (taken in the evening) everything looks more yellowish than it really is; it's all a warm cream with no strong yellow cast: Our MBR has the same walls and floors with cream comforter and drapes and dark furniture. I've replaced the comforter in this pic with a cream matelasse one, but it's still a white-on-white bedroom that we love. Living Room: Close-up of one of the sofas and Chloe the Profuse Shedder: So there you have an argument FOR white/cream rooms, but with reservations: washable walls and fabrics, darker wood furniture, cabinets, floors and rugs . . . and I guess, some good common sense as to if they'd work with you and your family. But, they've been working here for the past almost-18 years. Lynn