I talked to my husband when he got home from work last night. We're not using any of those bags of soil. We're using all native soil. We've also decided to plant these trees over 2 days. He works second shift so we don't have all day to do it. He's just going to dig a hole in a part of our yard and then when he's done with it will fill it with some topsoil or something. Funny that someone brought up a tiller. We already tried that idea. Well, sort of. We tried to rent one from Home Depot earlier this week, and they said we couldn't rent it yet because it's too muddy outside and they don't want any mud getting on the machine. We told the guy we would never return the machine with any mud on it but he insisted no one can rent the tiller yet. If all we were doing was planting trees it would be one thing but once we plant we are committed to putting up vole fencing around it. We've already got all the poles put up. Where we are planting we can see vole trails everywhere. Not to mention we also have to stake these trees (I stake every tree I plant for 2 seasons) because they are going to be in the prevailing wind section of our yard. The trunks and branches on these 2 foot European Hornbeam fastigiatas are so tiny! They look like they could snap right off. I smiled to myself this morning when I re-read my original post. I was completely panicked when I wrote it. I'm calm about it now. We're planting half today and staking and fencing them, and then the other half tomorrow on his day off. It'll be fine. I see people on videos all the time dig a hole to plant a tree and put the dirt back in and have enough to backfill, but we never do. And we put every bit of dirt we dig out of the hole on a tarp so as not to lose any of it but we still don't have enough.

It looks like Magnolia (also known as Brunswick). The story is that a peddler was selling "Magnolia" trees that later turned out to be fig trees - but the name stuck. Here is a link that might be useful: F4F Brunswick Pictures

Most yews are dioecious as well - that means you need both a male yew plant and a female yew plant to generate the berries/cones. And if you were to list all the plants currently growing in your garden, I'm sure a fairly high percentage of them would be toxic to some degree......that's just the nature of plants. It is always wise to be concerned and more importantly, aware of these issues but don't assign them more significance than they deserve. Hundreds of thousands of gardeners have gardened with both small children and pets and countless "toxic" plants for generations without any issues, myself included. And some a whole lot more "dangerous" than yews :-)

Hello, Let's see if I can at least get you going in the right direction. I think what I'm seeing is - Portulacaria Afra (Baby Jade) - Haworthia Fasciata (ridged stripes) - Echinopsis (round barrel cacti) I think there's Aloe Alworthia (Black Gem) & a Mammilaria (lower right) in there, as well. In terms of growing medium...I'm not sure. Where are your soil nutrients? I exclusively use pre-packaged cactus soil, which is part river sand, part potting soil and part pearlite. I also feed my potted cacti & succulents tomato plant food monthly during spring, summer, fall. My garden is a mixture of sand & soil. The cacti & succulents on-ground do perfectly well without additional care. Succulents are easily rooted. "Calloused over" just means the cut portion has been allowed to do just that, callous over, and is not oozing. Just allow to sit outside of soil at least three days. The reason is that cacti & succulents hold a lot of water in their leaves / stems. If planted just-cut you have a high probability of rot due to all the oozing. Once calloused over, I place in watered, well drained soil and leave it alone until I see evidence of new growth. That's usually an indication of new root growth, as well. I hope this has been helpful.