Just know that you are not alone... we had a magnificent row of white pines (on our property but overhanging the street) butchered by a town employee, riding in the bucket of a front-end loader with a chainsaw. As they raised the bucket, crawling down my curb, he cut a line straight up to about 12 feet. All to accommodate the snowplow, which had not in all the previous years ever bothered to plow all the way to the curb anyway, but which all of a sudden was (so we were told) "endangered" by the white pine branches (I personally have never met a white pine branch that was any match for a multi-ton snowplow, but there you are...) Needless to say, this resulted in many letters, many complaints, intervention by the first selectman and a reprimand for the "nonprofessional" "pruning" by the town. The reprimand must have REALLY ticked off the Public Works director, because next thing I knew (literally -- 8 am the VERY next DAY!), he sics the power company on my trees. Says his crew saw "plain evidence of arc-ing" (which if true, would be dangerous, I agree): of course, the power company themselves had "pruned" (i.e., topped!) the trees less than a year before. Pure retribution as far as I could tell! One more tree story: In that same line of trees lining the street (and forming, when we bought our house, a virtually solid privacy wall!) was a magnificent elm. A real, American elm. We spent a fortune injecting it to protect it against Dutch elm disease, and it was flourishing (not necessarily because of that, of course, since we subsequently learned that there was significant question about the merit of such treatments. Nonetheless, we did them and they weren't cheap!) Then the power company's tree guy came to the door on one of their many visits to butcher (ooops, "prune") the white pines, to ask my permission, as they must. I said (reluctantly) okay, but prune as lightly as possible and leave the elm alone (since I didn't think any of its branches were impacting power lines and I didn't want any unnecessary pruning of this beautiful specimen). We walked out together, he agreed with me, and told (while I stood there) the crew to leave it alone. I looked at about two hours later to see them lifting the bucket up to the elm. I RACED down the drive, planted myself at the base of their truck, and shouted up to the guy in the bucket: "SORRY GUYS -- You're DONE here!" (Further discussion ensued, of course, but in the end, they left, grumbling about "people like you, lady...") And as for line-of-sight, don't even ASK about my magnificent forsythia that the town wanted to remove. Even when a police officer came by and agreed it did not impede line of sight, they still sent someone out to "prune" it back. So a lovely old fountain of gold that never bothered anyone was turned in five minutes into a round little gumdrop. The public works guy -- when I confronted him in tears -- said "gee, lady, it looks MUCH better don't you think??" -- to which I (sobbing) said "take it OUT! if you're going to do that to it!!" (To which HE said "I can't take it out, I'm not authorized to do that..." Your tax dollars at work... Which is all just to say that I SO feel your pain! The irony is that two years after we moved from that house, a former neighbor told me that ALL those big white pines (which DID lose branches like mad every storm!!) had been taken out by the town! The reason: the roots were growing into the sewer lines in the street. Thank goodness I wasn't still living there -- they'd have had to lock me up for the duration! Final bizarre note: After the front-end loader butchering incident, the town offered, in response to my squawks, to "underplant" the trees they had butchered the lower 10 feet of, to try to fill in and restore some of our privacy. So in their infinite wisdom, what do they suggest they are willing to plant UNDER these troublesome white pines that are apparently destroying their snowplows? WHITE PINE SEEDLINGS!!!!!

Are you looking for evergreen or one that's bare part of the year? That's the BIG first choice. Cooking in the afternoon heat can be tough. - Lacey Oaks are EXTREMELY hard to find in larger landscape sizes in our area (Austin/SA) They're just not that well known and are SLOW. Larger specimens are usually only available from wholesale places. Here's a picture of some I looked at about an hour south of SA. Unfortunately I didn't have room for the Lacey on my trailer. These are 24in boxes. I opted for the even harder to find Canby Oak in 24in box. 24in Box Lacey Oak Nearly all the local nursery Lacey Oaks (not many) looked terrible. I may head back to get that Lacey next spring. Mexican, Bigtooth or Caddo Maples are all options but good luck finding any of those locally. I ordered all of mine and none bigger than 5g size. Bigtooth and Caddo are SLOW. Mexican Sugar is faster. Have you considered the Monterrey Oak (Q. polymorpha)? It's becoming common down here and seems to do very well. It's one of the faster growing oaks I've seen.

Hi Navyblue, If you live in Melbourne, there is an excellent native nursery called Kuranga on Maroondah H'way in Ringwood. They have lovely displays to give you ideas and are extremely helpful. They are not cheap, but their quality is excellent. Just remember, when planting Aust. natives it is better to plant small plants to get the best root development (and the bonus is, it's cheaper). Most are pretty fast growing and will be a decent size before you know it. You will be amazed at the choices of form and flower!! Dee.

I sowed the Sisyrinchium this past december, still waiting to see if they germinate. They should come up this spring right? I dont expect them to flower this year but at least I can get 30 of them, a small colony, in the ground growing and preparing to flower next year. I wintersowed them in a flat last year too, but my row cover ripped and made like a chute that directed water straight into the tray, and a lot of the soil, and presumably seeds too, washed away. No germination from that tray.