Your email is not setup. I have 5 different bromeliads that I could trade for your Desert rose. Email me directly and we could decide! Thanks, Kerai

Just one Leyland cypress tree has the potential to take over a midsized yard if it is not first overcome by pests. I wonder if your landscaper planted three so close together, on purpose to crowd them and limit each of their overgrowth potential. Concerning the Green Giants. These trees are much more resistant to pests. They do need good draining soil which is kept evenly moist, but not soggy, especially for the first year after planting. If your Green Giant tree's roots sat in saturated and soggy soil, that means the roots of those young trees were suffocating. and not long after suffering decay. If your Green Giants did not suffer from too wet of soil, then too dry of soil could have stressed them enough to make their needles begin to die. It takes about three years to get your Green Giants established well; That is, if you do not first kill them by to much care, over watering, or by neglect, letting their roots get too dry. Another thing that can cause the needles to yellow and die would be if a fairly large dog has been allowed to urinate for several months either on the folliage or even around the base of the tree. Additonally, you need to know that Green Giant trees, which have been stressed and are showing some lower branch needle death, will often if the stresser are removed and the tree begins to experience a proper invironment, begin to grow new needles on the earlier, dead looking branches, which were either covered with dead needles or bare looking from dropping all the needles. So, do not cut off any branches, even if they appear to have died. First wait even if it has to be till next year to see if the tree will begin to regrow healthy green needles on those branches. I say that, because any branch you cut off the tree, will not be replaced. If you want Green Giants, which branch fairly close to the ground, do not cut off any of the lower branches. If you do, no new branch will grow on the trunk to replace the ones you cut off. You can take all the dead needles that you desire off your Green Giants, because once healthy the tree will replace them. But believe me when I say, it is seldom ever a good thing to cut entire branches off all the way back to the trunk of the tree. If the branches you cut off the trees are as drastic as you described, It might be best to replace those trees. Just be certain that the trees you keep and any replacments you plant are planted in a well draining soil type of condition, and in an area where they will be fairly sheltered from the cold drying northwest winter winds. Then if those condtions are met, just be sure to water them with at least 1 inch of water a week, whenever the natual rains do not supply that. Drip watering is the best, but a soaker hose covered with mulch would also work. Even then, though, regularly check their root balls to make certain they are not sitting in soggy soil or too dry of soil. After their first year of growing in proper conditions, they will start becoming less sensitve to the issues I described above, and by the third year after they have become very well established they should begin to require even less special attention. Properly cared for Green Giant trees might grow only a foot or so the first year, 3 feet or so more the second year, and up to an additional 5 feet the third year. If your soil is not very fertile, and the new growth appears to be tall but very thin compared to the fullness of the bottom of the tree, then that could indicate your Green Giants would benefit from a feeding of slow release, not burning fertilizer. My Green Giants began filling their tops out much better after in the fall of their second growing season I began spreading Osmocote 3 month acting fertilizer underneath them. I planted these trees as an 18 inch tall one gallon potted size, and in a well draining soil situation 4 years ago. this spring they are 8 -9 feet tall, with a just barely 3 feet wide spread at the base. I chose not to fertilize them this spring, because late last winter we had almost a week of rain which coated the leaves and froze. The weather event was so bad that even my 25 feet tall shumard oak trees suffered from severe branch breakage. My Green Giants did not break, neither did they become uprooted, but the weight of the ice accumulation on them cause their tops to bend all the way to the ground. Even though they straighten themselves back up after the ice melted, and they currently look pretty straight, I can still see enough lean to know that they should not be fertilized to grow taller until they have a full growing season to completely right themselves up again. By this coming Fall in September, if any are still leaning I will consider staking them, and then giving them all a feeding of Osmokote again. Sorry my rely has turned out so long, I thought you might benefit from all this information, since you indicated that growing and caring for these trees is a new situation for you.

I don't feel that the bracts are long enough to be Odorata, if it has white petals it is more likely Alc. Glaziouana, yellow petals then it is Alc. Odorata

Jim, a September cutting can still be rooted successfully - I did this two years ago with a boxful of branches sent to me from Virginia by my aunt, when she pruned her fig bushes for me. I ended up with over a dozen plants that "took", though some are still small (but that's just me still learning how to grow them in pots). You'll want to select enough nodes to get decent rooting, while having room left for it to push some leaf buds - how many cuttings did you rescue from the branch, and what size are they? Presently I'm rooting pencil-diameter-size cuttings just started within the past four weeks, from a branch pruned off a friend's tree, and had at least two of four send out roots while wrapped in damp paper toweling, inside a plastic bag. Three have pushed leaves/stems already (actually, the fourth did also, but it was low on the cutting where I wanted roots to grow, so I nipped off the growth and am waiting for something at the terminal end instead). If you do a search on propagating or cuttings, you'll find a wealth of information within this forum on how to start them, but I'd recommend using either clear plastic bottles or cups (drainage holes punched plentifully in the bottoms) filled with damp perlite/vermiculite mixture (or something else exceedingly well-draining), *not* potting soil and not dirt. You can try rooting horizontally in a plastic container, using the same mixture, except partly burying the cutting. Roots can be coaxed out sometimes by using the damp paper towels around the cuttings, placing in plastic, then in a dark place, but check often for mold and for signs that the leaves are pushing first. I rinsed mine frequently and kept them upstairs where the temperatures were the warmest, and had very fast progress that way. Keys to good rooting will be: - avoiding excessive moisture (otherwise it will rot the wood), but keeping humidity up by tenting or partially covering the cutting - providing decent warmth in the root zone (a heating pad or mat is good if you can set the cuttings in their containers on top of one). - *avoid direct sunlight*, or the cuttings will fry. Keep them in bright light but without UV radiation hitting them. If you're starting them now, I'd keep them indoors and give them extra lighting (fluorescent is ideal) if you can. That's how my four are going now, along with another rooted plant that I'm trying to coax into leafing out - I do tend to keep the youngest cuttings going over the winter, since there's no time for them to truly harden off before cold sets in. BTW, most here would probably recommend NOT using a rooting powder or hormone. There've been rotting problems associated with them, and figs are typically so easy to start, they don't need it, and it may actually interfere with the rooting. I have better results without the stuff. Please ask if there's something else that would help you turn the Canine Caper's carve-job into new plants! Sherry (still learning how it's done even after several years now)