I'd recommend: Junierpus chinensis 'Blue Arrow'/could be species: virginiana Thuja occidentalis 'Degroot's Spire' You don't want Juniperus scopulorum because of disease issues. Juniperus communis will fair fine. Pinus strobus 'Fastigiata' is way too large of a tree. The verdict on 'Stowe Pillar' isn't known yet, however, it will not stop growing and will become very tall during its' life course. Dax

Haha...Bruce, it's not quite as high-tech as it sounds ;-) And it didn't work any way, so I can't say that I'd recommend it, really. Armac, I'm glad you asked that question. This Thread's about to max out, so it'll be good to have these pics here for posterity. I use two main screening items. The first is a plastic flat from a nursery, normally used for carrying plants. The squares in the plastic are 1/4 inch. I use this to remove the large particles of bark - only the particles that are 1/4 inch or less fall through. I collect everything that falls through the plastic flat into a large pond-basket. The pond-basket has 1/8 and 1/16 inch holes all around the outside and bottom. When I shake or rinse the ingredients, the fine dust and particulate is flushed out the containers. *I also have some aluminum door/window screen that is 1/16 of an inch. I occasionally use this to remove the fines from Turface in particular. The nursery flat and a pond-basket: Set the plastic flat on top of the pond-basket, add a couple handfuls of bark. The appropriately sized pieces of bark fall into the pond-basket where the fine bark dust can be rinsed or shaken out. Josh

Enjoying nature, I never have tried pruning hollies to a certain size. I let mine get to the full size and shape that they're meant to attain. You probably could prune them to any size and shape you want, but after a few years you end up with big thick branches with leaves sticking out of them and it looks unnatural unless you like tightly pruned hedges. I still can hear Neil Sperry's voice in my head on his radio show saying that if you want to prune shrubs into square green boxes, why not just go out and build a plywood box and paint it green. (grin) Who am I to defy Neil Sperry and try to prune my hollies to a certain arbitrary size? So, mine were spaced as far apart as they needed to be in the first place because I had a good idea how big they'd get and they are fine now---roughly 12' tall and 5-6' apart. Those are the Burford hollies on the south side of the house. They shade the south porch from the summer sun, which is precisely what I wanted them to do. On the east side of the house, which is where the front part of the wraparound porch and the front door is located, I planted Dwarf Burford hollies in 2011 and they seem more like the size you'd want. I wanted a naturally shorter shrub there so we could sit on the porch and look out into the yard somewhat at least. Mine have really had to struggle through drought (i think I planted them in April of 2011 and it stopped raining soon thereafter and didn't rain for 90 days that summer) so they have grown relatively slowly for hollies, but now are about 5' tall and about 3-4' wide and they haven't reached their max size yet. I expect them to top out at around 8' tall and 4' wide, but time will tell. They are a loose informal hedge, which fits with our country Victorian house....all relaxed and sort of cottagey. It is your house, though, and they are your shrubs, so you should plant what pleases you and maintain them in the way that makes you happy. I'm a firm believer that a person's landscape plantings should reflect their tastes and anyone who doesn't like it can just go mind their own business. Well, except, I still have Neil Sperry's voice in my head and I agree with his comments about picking the right shrub to begin with so you don't have to prune your shrubs to an unnatural size or shape. That's just me, though. Some people love formally pruned hedges and they should have what they want. All those years of reading Neil's newspaper columns, his magazine and his books when we lived in Texas (as well as listening to his radio show and attending his Garden Shows) trained me to be a certain way as a younger gardener, and I have his voice in my head the way I have my dad's voice in my head, even though he is long gone. Scott, We have native possumhaw hollies and I love them, but they sucker like the devil and we've got one in the front yard we're going to take out. I hate to take it out because it is the bird feeder tree where we hang the feeders, but we'll just move them somewhere else. It just suckers endlessly and I'm tired of dealing with it. We'll leave the ones on the edges of the woods because it doesn't bother us if they form thickets, and the birds love the berries in late winter and early spring, though they won't touch them until all the other berries are gone. When the cedar waxwings are migrating through in spring, they get pretty much drunk on those fermented possumhaw berries. I feel like pretty much everything we plant has one poisonous part or another, so I plant what I want. If kids are around, I keep an eye on the kids, and teach them not to eat plant parts without checking with an adult first. No child has poisoned themselves on anything we grow yet, so I try not to worry about it. (And I grow several types of brugmansias and daturas, but the spiny seed balls are so hideous that I don't think I have to worry about kids getting hold of them and accessing the seeds.) When we were kids we ran all over the neighborhood and played and we all knew to go home immediately when our parents turned on the front porch light. None of us died or ever got seriously injured or ill. It was a wonderful childhood, and we had a woodland, a neighborhood pond, rocky cliffs to climb, etc. I appreciate that we got to be kids with no one hovering over us too much. Times have changed. And, just so you know, most poisonous plant parts have a bad taste, making it less likely kids will eat them. Or, they will cause you to throw up if you ingest them, so kids are not that likely to eat and swallow them. (However, some dogs will eat anything, so that is one thing to keep in mind if you have dogs.) It is a sad commentary on life in this century that kids cannot play tag. No wonder so many children have a weight issue. It is hard to stay physically fit if you cannot do anything because you might get hurt. That is just sad. Dawn

The fruit, yes does drop but I have never found any germinating, so I guess they are either sterile, or need to pass through a gut first. It is slightly sweet, but more bland than anything to my jaded, curry loving tastebuds. :-) No regrets at all. I just wish I had space for 1 or 2 more. 'Cascade' is a hybrid between Syzygium luehmannii x Syzygium wilsonii subsp. wilsonii as far as I can tell. As you are in WA, dont know how it will go. Here is a pic taken a couple of years back.