sparklegirl - the wet marks on the ceilings were not there during the viewing of the home or the HI and they have been painted over? Sounds to me that the seller is attempting to cover it up, especially since it's been painted. Was this in the disclosure? You definitely need a lawyer pronto. DO NOT CLOSE on this house until this situation is rectified and there is a significant money held in escrow. Do not rely upon your realtor to advise you on this. Listen to logic. Get the lawyer to write a letter asking for a disclosure about the water on the ceilings. I also agree that the tree is a non-issue. Unless it is dangerous or could fall onto the house, I wouldn't bother with it. You could ask that money be set aside for its removal if you feel that it could pose a danger to the house. Since it was winter when you viewed the home, it is impossible to tell if the tree was dead at the time, so I think you should have the right to at least mention it. But it's a pick your battle kind of thing.... the water marks are most important. Logic - get yer mind outta the gutter! ;) terrig - thanks for the offer. We just found out that we're going to the Twin Cities now. *sigh* The joys of the federal govt!! lol

Yes even here it's still an evolving situation. For example, I would now rank the damage on Ilex 'Scepter' as being more severe than that on 'Sand Pond'. Once again proving how a 100% American X American hybrid is more resistant to our capricious weather than an Asian X European one...as you'd expect. Because the leaves of 'Sand Pond' are obviously reviving themselves, but those of 'Scepter' continue to dessicate and turn papery brown. I wish I had a male I. integra, it would be cool to make a 'Sand Pond' X integra cross. (I should clarify versus what I said on Feb 23rd: some 'Scepter' leaves were still undamaged at that point. All 'Sand Pond' leaves had minor damage. Now, ALL 'Scepter' leaves are basically dead and some are already falling off. Most 'Sand Pond' leaves still have damage but the green bits are getting greener, it seems. The March 5 freeze was by far the most damaging of the winter) There's some rather odd damage now becoming apparent even on Abies ernestii...sometimes rated as hardy as 5b and I've seen a huge, beautiful one near Rochester, NY. (part of the reason I bought one) The leaves have little yellowish spots...I might post to the conifer forum to see if someone has seen anything like it. They are so subtle they might be impossible to photograph. It's like a very subtle variegation. Certainly not serious, but fascinating. All in all as they say, it still could have been worse. It also makes me feel good about my choice years ago not to invest in trying a big, expensive Trachycarpus palm. Because I thought north of about St. Michael's, MD or maybe Cape May, NJ - and even those locations are really really pushing it- they have no chance of being truly long term plants w/o protection. I knew another winter like 1994 would happen, and it did. What I did not know is we would have 2 in a row! I reiterate that 'Soquel' is my best looking Sequoia...granted it is my oldest but the bigger 'Swarthmore Hardy'/'Chapel Hill' has been in the ground a while, too, and arguably in a better spot. (better soil) Not that it is an appropriate rating, but I'm reminded of Dr. Dirr's former SEO website that rated 'Soquel' as zn 6 hardy. Not true but he apparently had some information about it surviving cold temperatures well, which it does. If you need to try one in the DC area, I'd now recommend that over any of the others. I want to try to see the huge tree in Silver Spring MD this spring, to see how it weathered things, and the 2 that are almost as big in NoVA. BTW - given that exposed Leylands were damaged even last winter in the outer suburbs of Baltimore, I definitely think most of New England would be stretching it for them.

Here’s a status report, things didn’t go too well! I got the cactus mix and perlite and mixed about 3 to 1 (roughly). I put a few pebbles in the bottom of each pot. Problems began when I started to divide the root ball of the existing plant. The moment I picked up and started to gently pull it apart, the root ball pretty much disintegrated into dust, leaving many of the 2 or 3 foot long leaves with very small amount of stringy roots on the end. Plus, more of the long leaves were more damaged from the fall than I first thought. During the repotting process it would often “up-end” itself out of the pot and on to the ground due to the weight/leverage of the long leaves (I have to prop it up for now). Darn! But the good news there were two clumps of root ball that didn’t fall apart, that actually had several tender young shoots at the base (about 4 or 5 inches long each) and they don’t seem damaged in any way. That’s mostly all I could salvage to re-pot. Even though this project didn’t go that well, I actually enjoyed doing it and learned a few things. I’ve got 4 pieces in water to see if they will sprout roots, and I’ve got six pieces laid out overnight to “callous”, and I’ll stick them in soil tomorrow to see if they will root. Thanks to all for the support on this.

It is the inner bark of the japanese maple that they are after. They also harvest the bark from a few other trees, but if there is a japanese maple around its the one. The inner bark dries out to a very fine fibrous fluff after they chew it up and process it for their nests. The sap that runs in the spring is *decent*, but thats not what they are after—they can get much better sap from other species, such as red or sugar maple or river birch, etc. It’s the inner bark they want. They usually will not strip branches that are less than 1/2” to 1’ thick, unless they are desperate. Dogs/cats will not be an effective deterent. Squirrels are persistent and patient and very serious and committed concerning their nest-building endeavors. They will not be deterred by predators. They will simply learn routines and the yard’s vulnerable times when the trees are unprotected and they will adapt and overcome any predator threat they encounter while hunting for a gathering nest building materials. Trying to draw then away with food or another source of bedding will not work. They are not after food and they dont want your replacement mayerials like cotton balls or lint or anything else. Nothing is as good for their purposes as the inner bark just above the cambium layer of the japanese maple. So, drawing them away from the tree will simply not work—that is, unless you are using a bigger, more healthy japanese maple for the squirrels as an alternative to your tree. (Where they can harvest all the bedding they please.) There are three approaches you can try. 1. You can try to physically stop them with aluminum foil/wrapping chicken wire around the braches several times, or using something even better like aluminum flashing. 2. You can try to deter them. Using sparlkly shiny stuff like christmas tinsel/icicles or CDs hanging in the branches. Will take a lot and its ugly but it only needs to be there during nest-building season. 3. You can try to make it taste terrible. Using a combination of hot pepper and some terrible tasting grease, or whatever concoction you find works. Usually it will take a combo ot at least two of these tactics and sometimes all three, although if the squrrels areng desperate maybe only one. With squirrels and Japanese maples, you can follow the “how to survive a bear attack rule”. (You dont have to run faster than the bear to survive—you only need to be faster than the slowest memeber of your party.) So yeah, You dont necessarily have defeat the squirrels and drive them off. You just need some neighbors with bigger and better maples than yours. Convince some neighbors to plant Japanese maples all over the place in the neighborhood and eventually they will have way more than they could ever utilize. And they‘ll leave you and your japanese maple alone in peace. Cheers.