The Brock/Kaufman guide and Jeff Glassberg's BUTTERFLIES THROUGH BINOCULARS:THE EAST(or WEST, depending on where you are).

As with Apples your imagination is your own limit. This is a grafted tree with each branch having a different dwarf cultivar: A Pine graft after 6 months (the above understock is removed and the scion is the only thing left) This is a Fir graft where extra scions were attached to a Fir understock (extra scions and not enough understocks) so that the scions could be recycled. You may be able to notice that part of the original understock was kept and used and attached the following winter to this new understock: A couple more tips: Leave the understock above growth on for one full year on Spruce trimmed to one branch. The others (such as the 6 months pinus) remove them before fall of that same year. Some brooms will die if the understock is removed and some won't. Most won't. It's up to the grafter to find out what needs to be done. Only water when they are getting dry or you'll rot em and cause disease problems. Keep a shade cloth handy for days when the prop house might/will become too hot anytime. Don't let them get too hot or too cold. It's your job to babysit these until they're ready to be taken out of the house. You should pot em up when weather permits or anytime up till around June if you don't get to it right away. When all danger of frost has passed, bring the grafts to a shade structure or similar such as under a large tree so they do not receive full sun. They'll turn into toast if you don't. After one or two years the grafts will be ready for full sun. As soon as you graft, it's a good idea to hit em with a fungicide or combo fungicide/algaecide. Spray them right away then. After that, when the scions push, hit them again. Moniter the plants for disease and spray when necessary otherwise removing plants that might infect others. These first two times are kinda crucial. I'd recommend you do so. I happen to use Consan 20 because it's available at my local garden center, but another good one is Zerotol 1:10 (1 part Zerotol to 10 parts water). Read the directions man. That's about it I believe. Take care & best of luck, Dax

Someone started a similar thread last year about homes from our childhood. That was fun to read. cattknap - I have also enjoyed seeing your yard throughout the last few years. Your new yard looks like it's on it's way to being just as beautiful! Lucky you to have that "free" and maintained back yard. Beautiful! I can tell your DH takes pride in his yard, and what the projects! moonshadow - Thank you for that copying tip. Took me a while, but I was able to find a few of my past homes. I couldn't recall the addresses. lol Some of the others were so grown up with foliage in the front, that you could barely see the house. I didn't bother to copy those. This is the home I was raised in. The yard is also overgrown from how it used to look. It's sad. :( The shutters and balcony trim were once painted a really pretty celery/olive green. When I was in grammar school, I jumped off the balcony with an umbrella after having seen Mary Poppins. :) A few years later, I "ran away" and hid on the roof outside my balcony doors (far right.) My parents couldn't find me. The yard backed up to the woods where I would spend hours playing. There was a running stream, complete with salamanders. In later years, my parents added a wing in the back for my grandmother, a large rec room and a pool - just about the time I was leaving for college. My children were able to enjoy them before my parents sold the house. The first home DH and I bought when moving to our area. Talk about a storybook house! This house had the charm and a yard to go with it. The back slope was full of purple iris. A large red maple next to the stone is gone. The house was deceivingly large, with the master, two bedrooms and a huge bonus room being on the second floor. Two additional bedrooms were on the main. After selling the above home, we built the following in the same neighborhood. It's the house where my children did most of their growing up. We lived here the longest - 7 years. The house just recently sold again after the family that bought it from us, lived in it for 7 more years. They finished the basement out, but not much else. Not sure who lives there now, but I hear it looks good. Our last two homes, y'all have seen. Thanks for letting me share.

OK... here are some pictures of stumps/logs used in our garden. We had a dead pine and a dying pussy willow taken down last fall. Here is the 'Wolf Eyes' dogwood we planted this spring by the pine stump. I would have liked to plant it closer to the stump but the dogwood tree - assuming this one lives longer that the first one we planted! - would block the paths in that area if we planted it closer to the stump. Hopefully it is close enough for the roots to get the benefit of moisture and nutrients held in the stump. And here is 'Empress Wu' hosta by the willow stump. With the willow gone, this area has now become quite sunny. It is in the 'wet corner' area so is quite moist in spring but dries out in summer. Hopefully the stump will keep the hosta supplied with moisture longer and help it cope with the sunnier conditions. The white trilliums here really seem to thrive with the trunk of a dead apple tree providing shelter. In May: Yesterday: The red trilliums in a nearby bed were not doing as well as the white ones so I added a small cedar log in May this year: Yesterday: I also use pine logs as edging in some areas - useful to make a somewhat raised bed. They last about 10 years before they need replacing. A few examples: (Beside the shed.) (In the north alley - the snails have been partying on the astilboides!) (This log helps direct surface run-off past the shed and towards the 'wet corner') Stumps and deadwood are very useful things!