scotjute - Thanks for the recommendation. I've never heard a complaint about Forest Farm. I'll place the order this morning. The nurseryman who sold me the 6'+ trees said when he got them less than a year before, they were 1.5' tall. Is that possible? Terry - thanks for the advice. I don't want to create a solid wall of dawn redwoods so I increased the spacing between trees. I visited a Coastal Redwood park near SF this spring. Some trees were growing inches apart - if you lay down inside a grove and look up, it's a remarkable sight. I wondered about the feasibility of small dawn redwood grove, planted very close like that. Spruce: You are having far more success with your seedlings. At least 25% haven't leafed out. Some are leafing out from the bottom, others have buds. No sign of life in the tupelos. Weeds are a bear and it's only May. I planned to use a pre-emergent herbicide but by the time all the seedlings were planted, it was too late. I look forward to updates in your "planting on my new 6 acres" topic.

I have a question for all you pros or hand doityourselfers out there. I purchased a beautiful metal freestanding pergola from Sears earlier this spring. It is still in the box, but it comes in pieces ready to assemble. Here is a link (it's really long, so I hope it works!): http://www.sears.com/sr/javasr/product.do?cat=Patio+Furniture&pid=07180610000&vertical=LAWN&subcat=Patio+Furniture&BV_SessionID=@@@@0759546696.1180025482@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccfgaddkmldmmelcefecemldffidfni.0 Anyway, my patio is actually longer than this pergola, so I thought that I would try to reconfigure it to meet my needs by attaching it directly to my house on otwo sides. It is made to be freestanding with 4 pillars for support. But, if I attach it under the eaves somehow, then that would give me two unused pillars to use to extend the thing further if I could order some more beams from the manufacturer or get some metal beams and paint them to match. I would not use the fabric cover that comes with it, because in my Texas wind, I know that it would just give me problems anyway. I know that this is most likely a project that is beyond my limited expertise. But, do you think that I could hire someone to figure out how to make this work for me? Any advice would be really appreciated! My patio is roughly 11x20, and is situated so that 2 sides of it border a wall of the house (outside house walls make an "L", and patio fills in the space plus extends out beyond a bit). Any thoughts? Thanks!

Go to your local nursery and ask.

adeimus, I have no professional experience. I suppose it may depend on where you are. I am thinking it might be better to leave it alone if you are in northern CA. Old redwood burls tend to last Many years. That does not apply to new non heart wood redwood that will rot out in a couple years. I know nothing of this Abatron stuff and I suppose sombreuil's long experience should be given very heavy weight. However, again, redwood is very resistant to normal damage and some injectable might do much better than with other wood. Sombreuil's suggestion for using paint, indicate a basic lack of experience with burls or redwood. Lets bring that Mona Lisa canvas with all those streaky colors back to a pristine white canvas as it began, with some white wash paint. There is another approach. You could saw off the 'bite' area and resand the new edge. If you made a couple different angled cuts, no one might even notice, except the step might be getting a little small.