Taking away the clippings results in a steady loss of matter, nitrogen, carbon and the other micro nutrients in those grass clippings. Leaving them behind recycles them through the system. They break down and the matter is re-used for future growth. Leaving the clippings cannot logically increase the nutrients that the grass uses to grow, it just returns them. ISTM that my compost pile loves grass clippings. With this in mind I suspect grass clippings are very well liked by the micro-organisms that do the actual breaking down. If it's so good for the organisms in the CP, it's probably equally good for the organisms in the lawn/soil. I'd only advocate the removal of clippings if the grass was so tall that the clippings caused other harm by "smothering". Lloyd

Herringboned, Your speaking of stacking hay bales brings back memories. In my 20's (seems like yesterday, though I am pushing 50) my brother and I were doing truck farming. The guy across the way took care of a rich estate "horse farm"and we used to trade labor on various project. He also had a good friend who ran a beef farm and he gave us a lot of wisdom. I used to help stack hay in a huge barn there. I think that barn must have been 50 feet tall inside and we'd stack a given section till we ran out of headroom. As you got closer to the roof the less room you had to work. It would get to the point where all you could do was keep the bales from clogging up around the conveyer until that load was done. Then you'd stack like crazy hoping to get caught up and maybe have a short break before the next load. Hay under the nails, in the nose, in the mouth, in the pockets, down the pants! Anyway, there is a tractor aspect to this. We owed this guy for a lot of help and advice over the years (he also gave us a beat up old 3 row Deere corn planter) so I didn't expect much in return for the work. He'd sometimes give me a bit of cash. At one point he must have seen me admiring a Wheel Horse C-120 that was near the house in the yard with the hood open. So one day he shows up and tells me "I am giving you this for all your work". Boy was I happy and surprised! I grew up doing chorse with my Grandfather on a Suburban 550 Wheelhorse and always thought they were more authentic as "tractors" verus most riding mowers and GT's I'd see around. That C-120 Auto burned a fair amount of oil, and the finish wasn't very good, but with some fixing up and TLC is did a LOT of mowing and Towing. I was sad t leave it behind when I moved back to the city (Cleveland, OH) and into an apartment. Not sure what happened to it. Now I still leave in the city but I have a house and 2 Wheel Horses! The Charger 12 is very similar to the C-120 Auto. Thanks for the memories.

Well I decided to go ahead and cut the Jade and make a nice stump out of it. So first I had to cut the side growth at the bottom of the Jade just under the soil like...this tiny thing started to grow soon as the Jade started to root.(1st pic). What I did not know is that it was also attacked to the MAJORITY of the root system as there was a problem under the soil i did not know about. The baby came off the main Jade just fine with most of its roots in tact. So I cut this small side branching. Then I decided to cut this lower branch off the Jade before cutting the trunk. That is when I started to notice a problem. The Jade plant was not secure at all now. In fact it was hard to make the trunk cut without uprooted the whole Jade plant. Once I got the trunk cut I noticed that the stump was pretty much just sitting in the soil. So I gently pulled on it to see how well rooted it really was. It all but came up in my hand. That then revealed the real problem. The bottom of the trunk was rotting! I cut the rotted portion off the stump, actually had to cut to chunks off. There is only one small section of root. The main portion of root was actually attached to the baby I took off the side of it in the above second pic. Sigh..so this is a MAJOR setback if not a total demise to the stump project. I am very sad to have found this...but on the other hand if I had not decided to go ahead with the stump project I may not have found this till the whole Jade was a loss..So I guess in that respect I can feel blessed. I will let the stump callous over along with the Main big plant and then repot them both hoping for the best. Mary

Yes, from what I've heard some sports are from tissue culture. During tissue culture they cull any plants that aren't true to the original. Another thing to consider, usually the leaves of any cultivar in sun will tend to be smaller than the leaves in more shade and your hosta in sun has larger leaves. I just hope that my hosta ends up looking like the one on the Green Hill website.