Oh I talked to the crew myself about the plant damage and STILL it has happened! I can't even imagine how they broke the top branches of the burning bush as it is covered by an overhang. They are out there today and I noticed they put some wood planks over the new deck bed I planted this year. There is no way this bed would make it otherwise considering the damage they did to much larger plants out front. I have not gone out to check out the porch bed which is almost all new plants this year. I am afraid I will pull a nutty if I see anymore damage. What really irks me is I think some of this damage was intentional. Why I say that is because we have an older house. The owner of the company had asked me how many layers were on the roof when he came to give me an estimate. I told him flat out I had no idea. Well come to find out there were 3 layers (including the original roof from the 1920's) Apparently it has been very difficult for these guys to take off. It has the old nails from the original roof and when they attempted to scrape the nails were breaking off so have to be removed one by one. I have been hearing the crew peeing and moaning about how this roof WOULD have been a one day job except for the nails. Now I HOPE this contractor does not come back and attempt to charge me for this. The price was to reflect stripping the roof and putting a new one off. The ONLY variance in the price was if they had to replace any boards which they have not had to surprisingly as the wood was in perfect condition. When it comes time to anti up believe me, I am going to mention the plants...he is giving us a $150 gas card that was a sales promotion...I think that $150 has been eaten up already considering the bushes his crew destroyed!

Hi, DL. I'm not quibbling about terms, but it sounds like you only 'potted up', which is quite different from a repot, which includes removing all or almost all of the soil and root work. I agree with James - I think your tree's roots are in dire need of attention come spring. There are lots of posts about repotting methods - James has posted a good one, and I'm sure I've left a description that parallels his on this and other forums, so you might wish to have a look around for it. Your question more closely asks what temperatures will my tree tolerate, but it leaves unanswered the question of what temps are best. It would be best if you could keep actual soil temperatures above 25 and below 42* for the winter. Here is a longer explanation about cold-hardiness I left on this forum previously. If it leaves you with questions, just ask: Commonly, each species of plant has a general range of cold-hardiness. Within species and cultivar, cold-hardiness is genetically determined. That is to say that a plant that is propagated from cuttings or tissue culture will have the same ability to resist cold as the parent plant. Plants cannot "develop" a greater degree of cold-hardiness by repeated or prolonged exposure to cold, even after 100 years (trees). If we pick any plant at random, it may or may not be able to withstand freezing temperatures. The determining factor is the plants ability to prevent freezing of bound water. Bound water is the water inside of cells. There are actually three kinds of water to consider when we discuss "freezing". The water held in soil - When this water freezes, and it can freeze the soil mass solid, it doesn't necessarily kill the plant or tissues. Then there is free or unbound water, also called inter-cellular water. This is water that is found in plant tissues, but is outside of living cells cells. This water can also freeze solid and not kill the plant. The final type of water is bound water or intra-cellular water. If temperatures drop low enough to freeze this water, the cell/tissue/plant dies. This is the freeze damage that kills plants. Fortunately, nature has an antifreeze. Even though temperatures drop well below freezing, all plants don't die. In hardy plants, physiological changes occur as temperatures drop. The plant moves solutes (sugars, salts, starches) into cells and moves water out of cells to inter-cellular spaces in tissues. These solutes act as antifreeze, allowing water in cells to remain liquid to sometimes extremely low temperatures. The above is a description of super-cooling in plants. Some plants even take advantage of another process to withstand very low temps called intra-cellular dehydration. The roots of your trees can stay frozen for extended periods or go through multiple freeze/thaw cycles w/o damage, so long as the temperature does not fall below that required to freeze intra-cellular water. If roots remain frozen, but temperatures remain above killing lows, dessication is the primary concern. If the tree is able to take up water, but temperatures are too low for the tree to grow and make food, stored energy becomes the critical issue. Dormant and quiescent trees are still using energy from their reserves (like a drain on a battery). If those reserves are depleted before the tree can produce photosynthesizing mass, the organism dies. There are a number of factors that have some affect on the cold-hardiness of individual plants, some of which are length of exposure to seasonal cold, water availability (drought stressed plants are more cold tolerant), how recently planted/repotted, etc No one can give a definitive answer that even comes close to accurately assessing the temperature at which bound water will freeze that covers the whole species. Unbound water is of little concern & will usually freeze somewhere around 28*. Some material will be able to withstand little cold & roots could freeze/die at (actual) root temperatures as warm as 25-27*. Other plants may tolerate much colder actual root temperatures - as low as 10*. There's just no way of knowing unless you have a feeling for how cold-tolerant the genetic material the plant was derived from might be, and finding out is expensive (from the plant's perspective). ;o) Another example of this genetic variance is that trees found growing and fruiting well closer to the equator need no chill time, while other trees, derived of genetic stock from a more northerly provenance may need a period of chill to grow with optimum vitality in the subsequent growth period/cycle. It's wise to remember that root death isn't instantaneous at one particular temperature. Roots succumb to cold over a range of chill with cultural conditions affecting the process. The finest roots will die first, and the slightly thicker and more lignified roots will follow, with the last of the roots to succumb being the more perennial and thickest roots. Since any root death is a setback from an energy allocation perspective, and root regeneration takes valuable time, it's probably best to keep actual root temperatures in the 25-40* range as long as we can when the tree is resting, even though the organism as a whole could tolerate much lower temperatures. Even well established trees become very much like cuttings if all but the roots essential to keep the tree viable are lost to cold. Regeneration of roots is an expensive energy outlay and causes the trees to leaf out later than they normally would and shortens the natural growth period and reduces the potential increase in biomass for the next growth cycle and perhaps beyond. Al

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I haven't checked out your links yet but will do so today. I agree that a wood table is best...but if I could find that metal one I think it would give that French look I love. babushka and young deb, the table in the photo doesn't fit or I would just keep it. It is too short and doesn't allow people to sit and eat on all sides. Also, a back door swings open and hits the table. It definitely needs to be oval or rectangular. Iblue, Baywood was one of 3 or 4 companies our contractor got bids from. We were very pleased with not only the cabinets but the service. John helped me tweak our architect's design, adding a bit more detail. He redrew the cabinets at least once to show me how a a different glass configuration would look. I added some details like knife drawers, dividers in drawers and some double deep drawers. They forgot to do a couple things but happily came back, got the drawers and quickly altered them. We had our cabinets painted on site by our painting contractor. I will try to get their name for you. ( Benjamin Moore white dove, oil based.) I can't recall if Bayview installed or if our contractor did. I'll find that out too. I was very pleased with all aspects of their services and cost as well. Thanks again everyone. I can't wait to look at your suggestions!

The reason I'm confused is because people refinance ALL the time to lower their rates and these days, it's pretty unusual to see a prepayment penalty. I'm not saying it's wrong, it's entirely dependent on the type of loan you did, but just to be sure, I would double check your note to confirm a prepayment penalty clause is there and what the terms are. Refinancing is not a small deal and requires a specific expertise. If this man is lying and/or not doing his job, I would have a very difficult time trusting him with our financing. I might even be inclined to have a word with his manager and insist that a different loan agent be assigned to us. This is a little off topic, but figured I'd share anyways, but when I arranged for the loan to purchase our house, the loan rep kept trying to push us into an adjustable rate mortgage. I kept telling him no and insisted we wanted a fixed rate, 30 year mortgage only. On the day we went to sign docs we did it at the office of the Title Company. They get their instructions from the lender ie the loan rep and when they handed me the note to sign, it was for a 30 year Adjustable Rate Mortgage! I know from experience, that based on the conversations a borrower has with their loan rep, they trust the documents are accurate and they'll sign whatever is put in front of them without so much as a glance at what they're signing. And with us at least, the copies we were sent when the origination began, were for a fixed mortgage. Yet if it ends up being wrong at signing, the bank will tell you, you should have read what you were signing, and you are stuck. The commission for an Adjustable Rate mortgage was higher than that of a fixed rate loan and that Loan Rep was banking we wouldn't catch it. Well I did and I was really upset and made them redraw the docs. Since then, I've heard several times that the same thing happened to others in our area who had financed with that company which was a very large industry leader at the time. I can't say I feel bad that they are now defunk!