Well thank you Mike, I had cut up the parent plant so much that yours turns out to be the biggest and best of all. Now everyone else ends up with a smaller piece than the one I gave you. Sorry to the rest of you guys. Hard to be fair to everyone when I first started I thought only 2 or maybe 3 wanted some. Turns out to be 7 and counting. The last ones get the smaller cuts. But that's what I wanted it to be. The more you give, the more you receive. Just kidding with you Mike. Looks great. I have to post a picture of what's left of mine. Hint, I call him stubby.

I get yogurt that comes in a 6 pack (from the milkman). DH usually eats the vanilla & I eat the strawberry & raspberry. He's gone to Korea for a while and I discovered vanilla yogurt just isn't my favorite flavor, BUT take 4 8oz cups of it, mix 1 cup of milk and freeze it in the Cuisinart, top it with some warm strawberry sauce and it's like a whole 'nuther food! Don't bother with the chocolate (yogurt) recipe in the book though, it wasn't good. I bought mine on Craigslist (the lady bought it on sale at Macy's but had never taken it out of the box so she sold it for $25). That one goes on my "good purchases" list for sure.

I would not let anyone talk you into leaving that maple where it is. I'm overstating the point to make it so please don't be offended - but it looks ridiculous there. It would be one thing if it were rendered insignificant by other mature trees in the yard, but as it is your major tree, to have it two feet from the foundation is simply absurd. And if your neighbours complain about your insensitivity, ask how much they'd like to contribute to the replacement of your foundation, which will be losing its battle with the tree shortly, or if they're up for going up the ladder to do your quarterly eaves-cleaning (the brain wards are full of people who have fallen off their ladders cleaning their eaves). And offer to buy them a maple just like it (get it identified on the maple forum if you don't know what kind it is) to plant in their own yards. In particular given the work you are planning on the house, you can be entirely excused - the tree will be horridly in the way, and it may even die. A convenient excuse - use it! Do talk to them in advance if you know they feel strongly, but it's your yard, not theirs. Karin L PS, I do like your fake closed window. PPS, I have raised two kids in a house with old siding covered in old peeling paint (and then there is the inside). Neither one is precisely mentally handicapped. I think throwing siding away to protect them from lead is thoroughly misguided. Other reasons to throw it away may be valid, like rotting and the paint won't stay on it (though I quibble with that diagnosis). Not to say you shouldn't do what you have planned, but just to be clear on your reasons. PPPS, if you put the siding for free on craigslist, you might not have to take it to landfill.

I've always thought of dormancy as something plants can do, more so than something they need to do. It is more of a skill of survival through the cyclical weather patterns of the seasons--evolution and genetic adaptation. It is a rather insular idea that cold is the only condition that promotes dormancy in plants. In many places in the world dormancy is promoted by lack of water--a dry season if you will. Some of our heat loving roses likes teas and chinas hail from places like that. I strongly suspect the disaster teas roses are in my 7a garden where they cannot survive through to spring--even though conventional wisdom says it should be warm enough--has more to do with the fact we have significant moisture in the late winter and early spring. It is the moisture that forces them out of dormancy, but then it is still too cold for growing, un-dormant plants to not to be mortally damaged. We take plants that have evolved under certain weather patterns and then expect them to thrive someplace with a different cycling of conditions all while assuming that dormancy triggers are the same. They aren't. All that to say, I don't think I would try to force dormancy based on temperature/cold without at least trying to understand the potential genetics of that particular rose.