Oh! They look just like the giant round yews I used to have on the corners of my house. One yew in the yard was removed after we moved in by my very useful DH and I hemmed and hawed and thought about what to do with the others since I didn't want to see DH destroy his back. Well, I finally decided that I didn't want huge bare spots next to the house and have to put something else there anyway. So I went with the major trimming and I really like the result. HERE'S WHAT I DID: I would NOT recommend cutting them back to 2 feet even though eventually they will grow back. The trimming can be done in stages so you are not left with a bare stump. 1) You can cut back the bush hard all over as far as the green goes to leave some green showing. I did this first. Yours look much too tall like mine were. 2) Then, if you look inside the yews, you can see that there is basically a trunk with radiating branches and the green is mostly on the ends of the branches. What I did was to trim off all the lower radiating branches and leave the top of the bush green. The result will be a vase shaped bush. I wanted to make mine narrower to keep off the house siding and because they were blocking the path. The trunk and branches are actually quite attractive and the top can be rounded or shaped naturally or done like topiary if you want. This left a lot of room underneath the bush where I can plant bulbs or anything else. The yew roots don't seem like they are too thick or shallow for other plants. This will let you keep the shrubs, make them smaller, trim them away from the house, and plant more plants in front of them. If you would like a photo, email me and I'll see if I can figure it out. I just dropped in on this forum for a minute, but had to respond. Susan

I think what they may be getting at is that you don't need to cut group 3 down as hard as is routinely done. They do bloom on new wood, but new wood grows from anywhere along the vine. If you don't cut it low to the ground, the new wood will be higher up. That may be where you want it. Many people say 'ah, but then you get bare stems at the base...' Sometimes that doesn't matter, or you can cut a few stems lower to provide cover at the base, while leaving most of the new growth higher up. I regularly do not cut back group 3 hard. I just selectively trim some lower stems and leave a lot of the rest fairly long. If there are more/longer stems, there are more places for new growth to rise, making more places for flowers to emerge. More expert clematis growers pooh-pooh my approach but it works for me and I'll keep doing it. I planted a Betty Corning last year so I don't have any relevant experience with that one yet. I know it's supposed to be very vigorous and long-blooming. A few pictures of group 3s not hard pruned: Jackmani Superba that had never been cut back hard for seven years: It'll be interesting to see what that one does this year because it got cut back very hard last summer when we took out the New Dawn roses that shared the arbour with it. The clematis on the chainlink fence on the side is also a Jackmani Superba that gets cut back to the top of the fence (4') each year. I'm not sure what the clematises on the copper fence are - they were supposed to be Huldine, but clearly aren't! They are only two years old in that picture (2010) so are still a bit skimpy. I prefer not to have to do a lot of pruning so most of my clematises are group 2. Last summer we replaced the New Dawn rose swag with clematises. They are a mix of group 2 and 3 but I intend to treat all of them as light/no prune. It'll be a couple of years before I can see if that will work well or not. My experience to date has certainly led me to believe that one does not have to rigidly adhere to the pruning 'rules' to get a showy display and happy vines.

I went through the same exercise a year ago and chose the 36" Wolf cooktop, a Wolf single oven with a Wolf convection/microwave on top. I have been using them for four months and am very satisfied. I chose the cooktop because (1) Wolf has a good reputation for quality and service, (2) I liked the layout of the burners, the placement of the knobs on top and the backlit indicators that a burner was on, and (3) the appearance of the grates which are very solid. I was also influenced by the fact that we are using propane and Wolf makes both an LP and a NG version, rather than having the system retrofit by an installer, which is true for some brands. I cook a fair amount but don't need all the burners to be high BTUs as they are on the range tops. I purchased a separate All Clad griddle which straddles two burners nicely. Previously I had cooked only on electric stoves. The one thing I notice with the cooktop is the need to be careful not to turn the burners too high or the flames come up the sides of the pot and cause scorching. It may be that the Thermador star design is better in this regard as the Wolf burners appear to heat the edges of the pot faster than the interior of the bottom. However, the simmer is fantastic. It never needs to be adjusted. The ovens were a more difficult choice for me. I went with the Wolf in large part because of appearance. My ovens are placed next to the Sub Zero fridge and everything matches nicely. The regular single convection oven is a good size. It bakes and roasts well; the broiler is nothing special. I have put three trays of cookies in at once and they all cooked perfectly. You do have to remove the racks for cleaning. Some GE ovens are attractive because the racks can stay in. I notice that there is much more spattering of grease in a convection oven than my older conventional one. Therefore I remove unused racks when roasting meat or poultry. The controls look complicated but are actually fairly intuitive once you go through them once. All in all an excellent choice but I am not sure the performance is any better than less expensive ovens. I was unsure about the convection microwave. It is, as Wolf readily acknowledges, a Sharp or Panasonic product with an expensive trim kit. The exterior is black plastic and not up to the standard of the regular oven. However, the microwave works well. It has about 100 watts less power than a regular microwave but that does not seem to make a huge difference. I was surprised that I use the small convection oven as much as I do. I use it for warming bread or leftovers and cooking small pieces of fish or chicken. It heats up quickly and is probably much more energy efficient than using the large oven for these tasks. It worked well for baking a single pie crust but I use the larger oven for cakes. I also use the convection oven for warming plates or holding side dishes as I did not get a warming drawer. Hope this helps. Wolf was a good choice for me but I am sure there are other options.

Kay, how are you? I haven't been around for a while, I had to take a break and get myself together. To everyone I want to tell you that I am so sorry for your loss and sadness, it is the worst pain anyone can have BUT it does get better, I promise. My heart and soul mate died 14 months ago and I wanted to die with him, I was in so much pain and so scared of what was going to happen to me without him; life must go on. I was told that it doesn't get better but it gets different and they were right. I still weep and some days are bad but I have more good days as time goes on. Life won't seem so alien after a while, I just felt like I didn't belong here any more, not in my home, my job or this world but I did finally settle with my feet back on the ground. It's not easy but you have to push youself to live and it eventually gets easier. Please take care of yourselves, get help if you need it and work hard at being strong, we will never forget and we will always love them and happier days are ahead. God Bless all, Mav.