Maybe your sand helps a lot Ken, seriously! (at least temporarily - many more years than folks with humidity and humus rich soils will have healthy specimens) but there will come a day that the humidity will win in your sand pit as well. The native climates don't match is the key issue. Douglas fir is prone to needle diseases (big-time) as are most of the native Colorado conifers. Picea pungens will thrive for only so long here. Pinus reflexa (sold as flexilis) also has it's time limit. I'm sure aristata will fall in the same category as will Pinus monophylla or Pinus edulis; Heck maybe even engelmann spruce... And whatever else I may be missing. Dax P.s. Sara's profile does say IL but Indiana isn't going to be a lick different.

It's dead common here :-)) Iseli carries it so any nursery that has a relationship with them (most better ones do) should be able to bring it in for you. Also listed as a "special order" plant by Oakland nursery and they have 4 garden centers locations in OH. https://www.oaklandnursery.com

@susan9santabarbara agree, that’s what I always thought, but I have read on the bbb website where grf (Ryan and the new cs lady) both have replied and it appears some folks have been refunded, so worth a try and anything to get your hard earned money back. That company will continue to cause stress, they absolutely thrive on fake and ugly and hope folks will be quiet, so we may as well warn and send it there, because at least folks can see those complaints/ negative reviews.

Last winter we coppiced our large Cotinus ’Grace’ down to about 12” for the first time. This produced the desired effect of lots of strong new shoots this spring, filling out quickly with large, colorful foliage. Last week, we had a thunderstorm roll through with some very strong winds, and I’ve now noticed that all of the new growth on the Cotinus has essentially ”collapsed” (see photo below). It appears all those new shoots were unable to withstand the wind with all of the huge new foliage weighing them down. Any suggestions on what to do at this point? Most of the shoots don’t appear actually ”broken” or damaged at this point; they’re all just strongly curved/bent at the base, leaving the beautiful foliage flopping all over the ground. Should I leave it be and see if the stems will eventually pick themselves back up, or should I prune back some of the flopping stems to see if it will produce some newer upright growth? If all else fails, I can always coppice it again next winter, but I’d love to get it back upright again for the summer. I’ve only every pruned our Cotinus when dormant, so I’m not sure how it would react to pruning when in active growth.