Fleur - these double leaves are working great. I had a vision of stacking 3 or 4 up using your post idea (cup of concrete ) with a receiving sleeve (empty cup making a hole) . With your friend's idea of the plumbing.... seems a person could arrange a stackable combination of leaves that would look good and avoid the difficulty of supporting separate leaves that pour into each other... Something for me to think about.. Laura

I think you'll find the obelisk a much better choice. And an attractive garden element as well. Good luck with your new clematis. Remember to dig a generous planting hole in well-draining soil, amend well and plant deeply - 2-4" lower than the current level of the container. Prune back to about 6" now or in late winter and continue to prune hard for the next couple of seasons. This will insure a strong root system and multiple stems. And be patient.......clematis take around 3 years to really come into their own. And I'm sure that original price on the shepard's crook was a typo :-) $1900 is preposterous!!

Hi all I am new to this forum but I do visit gardenweb daily on other forums. I have an interesting situation. Four years ago we sodded with Kentucky blue grass and it isn't doing well. The area is dappled sun and shade from two large silver maples. The soil is clay and compacts easily from us walking on it. I also have 3 Shelties that are occasionally on it. On the north side of the house, moss is growing and I am tempted to let it take over. However, in the main part of the yard, I have a very large weedpatch rather than a lawn. Planting a ground cover was suggested by a neighbour and I am looking for ideas. I have done extensive searches at most of the stepable sites and the only thing that seems remotely suitable is Lotus corniculatus Plenus "Double Bird's Foot Trefoil". Does anyone have any comments on this groundcover or can suggest another groundcover? I need something that will survive our winters which do occasionally dip down to -40F. We usually have a decent snow cover during the winter. Below is a picture of the area. As you can see, I have a nice crop of weeds and not much grass. Thanks in advance for your thoughts and ideas. Danni

Thanks! I seldom use a tripod, but since I was in the car, I just balanced the Canon 400mm lens against the window. My Canon EOS 40D needs strong light from behind and to be close to work well, so I was glad the Buffleheads came as close as they did..about 40 feet away while fighting. As to why they were fighting, Buffleheads are monogamous, at least for a few years at a time, so apparently the newcomer male was defending his mate of choice that year. Perhaps she'd not yet made up her own mind because she kept approaching the single male, bobbing her head, and he'd bob back. Whenever he noticed this the first male would attack and drive the single male away, even though the single male kept trying to continue his foraging dives between attacks. These sea ducks are among the last to migrate to their breeding grounds in Canada, where they use Northern Flicker and Pileated Woodpecker holes by small lakes (link to Bufflehead pdf files http://seaduckjv.org/infoseries/buff_sppfactsheet.pdf ) For the Wood Ducks, I crawled into an old slab wood lean-to blind and balanced the lens against a cross bar. They are very jittery and I've not been able to sneak up on them since