since you brought it from a warmer zone to a cooler zone.. i bet you need not worry about it.. and i presume it is not leafed out. if so ... add that facts ... if it were me ... i would get one of the kids saucer sleds.. place it in it, just to keep the floor clean .. and throw a couple of damp rag towels over the root ball .. and just maintain the dampness until planting my garage floor is a natural refrigerator this time of year... it will help maintain dormancy .. and with all the melting snow.. humidity is off the charts.. so all i would be concerned about is the root tips touching the burlap which were severed at digging.. and the towels will help those ... bottom line.. if this were june/july/august.. i think you would have a lot to worry about ... in march.. in z5 or 6 ... or colder... just insure it is a bit[key word] damp .... and dont worry about it ... as to your soil issue.. you failed to mention what your native soil is ... in my PURE YELLOW SAND ... i could have problems with PURE CLAY .. see link... two opposite corners of the soil triangle ... if they were closer to the center.. it would probably not be an issue at all ... if you had to totally guess ... which is your type??? your county soil conservation district office might be able to give you a clue ... almost all soils.. except for my sand.. have some amount of clay.. whether you see it or not .... the issue is .. how close is yours ... when i transplant from a small nursery around my yard.. i can make a ball .. but it usually just falls apart.. so i usually end up about 85% bare root on trees and conifers ... with proper timing of year .. it is not a problem ... when i buy potted stock.. that has been in the pot for way too long.. i have to bare root to untangle the roots ... never really a problem .. at the old house.. where i had a nice silty or medium loam ... i just dropped plants into the hole and planted them ... so .. again.. looking at the soil texture pic.. unless the soil types are diametrically opposed... 6 of this.. half dozen of the other ... good luck ken Here is a link that might be useful:

The only place in the house I've ever managed to overwinter rosemary was when I had one in the window next to the kitchen sink. It was rather weak by the end of winter since I didn't give it extra lighting and the light in winter here is rather meager. People and houseplants alike have difficulties because of the lack of sunlight we get in winter! Anyways.....any of the other rosemaries I've tried to overwinter - all kept in other locations, died. They turned crispy and died. I suspect the humidity, which the kitchen is one of the more humid places in the house, might be key to their indoor winter survival. FataMorgana

Mangoes, and 'maters, and mutts, oh my! Hahaha. Florida mimi, my little Maks loves my cherry tomatoes, too. He can carry one around all day long with breaking the skin on it. He just lies to toss it and chase it. And he was fixated for awhile on a low growing Meyer lemon I have in a pot. He was SURE that lemon was his yellow tennis ball, and would come to a screeching halt every time he ran by the pot, so he could stare at it and try to figure out how to get it down. (Of course, Maks is a nut case who also buries his own pee by pushing sand or leaves over it with his nose. I've NEVER seen a dog do THAT!) Trini, I love the image of the bulldog standing on a chair, hoping to get a mango! Silvia, you are so right about dog breeds. I've been fascinated by them for years, because they are all man-made, and with the exception of the really wolf-like breeds (huskies, etc), are all so far from the original design as to be completely amazing. There is no other animal on the planet that has been deliberately bred and modified to such extremes as dogs. And each breed DID have a purpose, from herding & protecting the flocks, to protecting the home, to hunting via running down the game, scenting out the game, digging up the game and retrieving the game. And of course, some were bred purely as companions. Dachshunds were bred to dig out and kill badgers, which are pretty ferocious animals. And their hunting instincts are very strong, even if they are mostly used as companions today. It doesn't matter if they or their immediate ancestors have ever seen a "varmint" before or not. They just KNOW they need to catch it and kill it. That can be a blessing or a curse, depending on what they see as being a varmint. Mine go after my black racers all the time, and it's only been by my immediate intervention a couple of times that the racer lived to slither by another day. Cat person or dog person? Me, I can't live without them BOTH. (Three huge cats 15 to 20 pounds each, and two small dachshunds at 10 and 11 pounds.) Marcia (Kathy, we hijacked your thread a bit...but still, dogs CAN be one good answer to a critter problem)

Thanks everyone for all the feedback. Have to admit that at the moment I'm feeling a bit confused on how to proceed. A little more info on the plants in the photos: IRL the leaves are all dark green and the lighter ones were new growth. In the pics the sun angle made them look even lighter. Embothrium, you're correct that the Portugal Laurels are in poor shape, as are a lot of potted plants on their property, but the Skip Laurels are recently dug. I have no idea why they are keeping such root bound and sad looking plants in inventory but I'm also not sure how long the current owner has been there. Our county has a large nursery/grower industry and the seller of the SL's buys their plants from a wholesale grower in Canby. It's not unusual for freshly dug B&B to be available, but they're usually only available to landscapers and lawn maintenance services. Every now and then one may find a wholesaler that will sell to the public. I have played with the idea of a mixed screen planting but the problem has been finding plants similar in height. We'd like at least 4' high to start with but all I've been finding is young, pathetic plants in 5-10 gallon pots. We ended up choosing SL because it tends to stay relatively narrow, is deer resistant and has fewer problems with insects. It will never be sheared but will be trimmed as needed. The area is ready for a drip line and the seller would plant them. Soil is Jory loam, there are pocket gophers and we have deer that visit seasonally. The reason for the screen is to block our neighbors driveway and hopefully a portion of a neighbor across the street. One photo shows our driveway on the right and to the left you can see the neighbor's (pardon the sad trees from the ice storm....tree service scheduled). The other photo shows the view from our front door/walkway. We don't mind the chickens that visit from across the fence. :) The property line runs between the 2 driveways, 15' from our driveway and tapers down to 12' by the time you reach the cherry trees. If you look beyond the cherry trees you can see a white stake that marks the property line, then it turns left. The red flags mark a buried telephone line, something we may have to work around. I'm still open to ideas of other shrubs and haven't closed the door to a mixed planting. Unfortunately, several of the shrubs I would like to plant are deciduous and hubby wants no see-thru areas once it's planted. We've been in this house for only a year... the reason this work wasn't done earlier.