Good for you.....It would be good exercise, but like swimming upstream in a swift river. If it were possible, postpone the digging until Fall arrives and leaves drop off. It would be very good to deep soak the whole area around each tree so as to change the clay into slushy, gooey, soggy consistency. Dripping, falling-apart wet. With rubber gloves, a sharp shovel a hand pruner, and a garden fork you could slowly try to uncover and clean each root and remove the slushy clay encasing the roots. Cut the roots as far from the trunk as you can. Especially salvage the thin, mossy roots. Gentle handling is very worthwhile. After the "fillet" of tree/roots comes out, you could hose it off to get rid of the remaining soggy clay. If it were possible, soak the entire root structure in a water-holding "vat" made of any kind of frame that could support 6 mil thick plastic sheeting that would make a shallow swimming pool. Let the trees soak for a day or 2 in water that is enhanced with fertilizer. For me, I use a strong dose of Superthrive in the water. Instead of digging a big hole for each tree and covering the tender roots with chunky native soil, I would use several bags of nursery's bagged potting soil to pour on top of the trees to make a mound on top of the undisturbed soil there with the tree staked upright and sitting on top of the soil. Keeping the mound continually moist is necessary so the thin mossy roots don't croak. All of this is greatly improved if done in late Fall. Good luck.

Beeone, it's been a week from hell! If Mother Nature isn't calling yer hand then it's something else- for me, our furnace decided to act up. Nothing major, but it does require a visit from the tech, and missing sleep putting all the pieces together. So it goes, and while it's going it seems to taking our refrigerator with it ... but I'm not whiiiining ... :-) Good luck with your Macs. I think our Liberties are very similar (well, for a long time I thought Liberty was a variety of MacIntosh) and they can be a real treat. I also got about four boxes (worth keeping anyway) and have most of them in a second refrigerator. I'll make a few pies and contribute the balance to the cider pressing that seems to materialize every year about this time. H-Man, I think I must have been very lucky, but my apples seem to have been unaffected by the cold snap. And perhaps I should note that the official low was 23 F, not 21, but still cold. I spent the better part of this afternoon and much of yesterday sorting them, and even served a couple to my wife, and there isn't any sign of degradation, at least yet. I'm surprised by this because my trees are all in our lawn, and my wife is a pretty thorough irrigator- no blade left unwatered. (But aside from an occassional drowned apricot or plum it seems to work pretty well.) It's supposed to get down into single digits F tonight, so I even lifted my leeks. We might get a nice warm spell in a week or so, but for now, Summer's over. Best to all, M

Tracy, I think you'll find plenty of information and opinions in the threads shown in the link below. It's the results from searching for 'dwarf spacing' in this forum (which should cover dwarf and semi-dwarf varieties). As you'll see, a big factor in spacing will be pruning. The cedars may present a problem from CAR (cedar apple rust). Since I'm not familiar with the prevalence of this disease in your area (and can't even tell where you live because you didn't include that info with your zone info or on your member page) , you might want to contact your local ag extension service for more locally-relevant information on that. If you want to supply your location, you might be able to get more information about CAR here, from someone close to your area. You may also want to do a search from pruning techniques. You'll find numerous threads on the topic (maybe to the point of overload). Once you've done a little studying on that, come back and ask questions to clear up any concerns you still have. I wish we had one single, really thorough thread about pruning, but unfortunately the information is pretty scattered. Finally, have you researched varieties that will do well in your area? That may be a "can of worms". If not, your local extension agent might be able to give you some initial ideas on that too, but you'll definitely want to supplement his/her recommendations with your own research. Here is a link that might be useful: Search for 'dwarf spacing'

I wouldn't worry about rose purgatory. After all, you're planting on YOUR side of the fence, lol. I say go for it. But if you haven't completely settled on Treasure Trove you might look at some I've grown. If you're thinking in terms of coverage and securing your perimeter against mean neighbors and/or zombies, there's nothing like the sempervirens ramblers. I've grown all these I mention below (except Awakening. It's new this year) in my zone 7a without any problem. The only time any of them had dieback was after the Arctic Express back in the 80's when we set the record of -24F. All of them are healthy for me. My favorite is Francois Jaranville, a beautiful warm pink/peach. Gardenia is a great warm white with hint of creamy yellow. It will bloom in some shade and gets HUGE. I'm talking 30+ feet. Of course there is my pink trio: Dr W. Van Fleet, New Dawn and Awakening (once-blooming dad, reblooming sport-daughter, and double reblooming grand-daughter, lol). There are many other sempervirens climbers to look at on HMF, some more rambunctious than others, and I assume you want a BIG rose. If you're concerned about hardiness, you might look at the setigera climbers. Some are house eaters as well, but in general are hardier than the sempervirens. Long John Silver (white) and Baltimore Belle (pink) are big, boisterous and bountiful. If you just want to block the view, you probably couldn't do better than good old climbing Mlle Cecile Brunner. If you can track it down, there's an elusive reblooming form somewhere out there. Mine has rebloomed a smattering in the past when I've done some judicious pruning right after the Spring flush, but it's getting much too big to bother with. If I were you, I'd contact Lynette, aka oldrosarian. There isn't much about climbing roses she doesn't know, and not many she hasn't grown! And her photos...oy vey!