Yes you are blessed. bye the way, what is rabbit fencing. what are the size of the holes. I know chicken wire is usually one inch holes. and rabbit hutches use like 1/4 inch or 1/2 inch wire mesh. but wire mesh is expensive for fencing. I have to be honest I have not seen new evidence of the groundhog these past couple of days. But with holes in the yard they can not be far off. I did see at least 2 different ones in the garden previous. a big one and a little one. so they are around. just not chomping hard on the garden. to annie on the salt. I would think it better to bind up the salt into a brick or solid. Now farm stores sell salt blocks. getting some bacon fat and adding salt would bind it into a fat blob and at least hold the salt together. or soaking into a sponge. Kosher salt would have a few big chunks and you might filter out a few big chunks. a tiny moisture might help them bind together. but I would not just pour small granule table salt down a hole. it seems to me it will disappate some. besides you really dont want to add salt to your soil. salt is not good for ground water. If you have a chunk of salt and it does not get eaten then you can remove the salt from your soil. Some years ago I seem to remember reading that a woodchuck can have several dens and he will visit them in order as he goes around the territory. so maybe he is out on visit but will be back to check when the good stuff is ready in my garden. Also next year I have to start trapping earlier when there is little food available. Today I harvested some nice broccoli for me. nice tender side shoots. the head I took a week or so ago. I like this Thompson Broccoli from Fedco seeds. it is going to be one of my favorite veggies.

It's extremely counter-intuitive, but a layer of gravel or other coarse material does not improve drainage either in a pot or just below a planting mix in a bed. (At the subgrade base of a retaining wall, with or without drain pipe is another case entirely.) Water has considerable difficulty moving either vertically or horizontally from a mix composed of smaller particles to one with large particles and a much greater percentage of air spaces. The phenomenon is called "perching" and there are many technical explanations online as well as a good discussion of the issue on the container growing portion of Garden Web. Even though rhododendrons are indeed shallow rooted plants, what can happen is this: With a gravel layer say 8 to 10 inches below the planting mix the lower few inches of that mix becomes saturated. Capillary action can cause the entire depth of planting mix to reach a saturated state before it begins to give up water to the gravel layer. Shallow azalea pots ,btw, are not intended for long tem growth. They're a florist convention for quick growing azaleas having more to do with aesthetics, tradition, weight,etc.than with long term growth of the plant. That's why they are very rarely used by commercial rhododendron operations which need to grow on their plants for a number of years before they can be marketed.

My purpose for the retaining wall is two-fold. Primarily to keep our 60inches of annual rain from washing dirt off the mound I planted the tree on and into the low area around the tree that needs to stay low enough to drain water from around my house. I want the low wall to be visually appealing so I plan to match it with the rock wall (part of an outdoor shower). The bonus for the sturdy wall is that I can use it to help support a freeze cover during cold winter nights. My main purpose for posting was to get input from folks with mature Dancys to see how big they get. I'm guessing mine won't get as big as some since my winters will be a little rough on my tree. I'm in Zone II, it's recommended for Zone I.

You have been given so many really great suggestions that I don't think I could think of any that are better or more helpful. I did however want to address the "ugly" wall. It is possible to colorize your wall with what is generally known as "white washing" but by adding a cement additive you can tint it any color you would like. It's very simple really. You would need a bag of white portland cement, a bag of white hydrated lime and the colorant powder of your choice. Mix the portland and lime 3 to 1 and add water so it's a milk consistency then add the colorant until you get the color you like. Measure the colorant as you add it so subsequent batches will be mixed to the same color depth. Brush it on with a paint brush. The painting goes faster than you would think by sort of swishing the brush in all directions to fill all the little crevices, You have about 30 minutes or so to work the cement mixture but if it starts to stiffen just add more water and mix well again and finish up. I did this on my very old cement stucco house this past summer and it is the brightest shiny white you could ever imagine. It looks beautiful with freshly painted trim. Anyway this will work on anything with cement like texture (bricks too) and because of the added portland cement it will not wash away like a simple lime only solution will eventually do. You could even do a really bright color like red or deep blue if you wanted to and consider it an art wall if you wanted. Just something to consider in addition to plants. Any left over materials can be mixed with sand added to make stepping stones or cement planting containers etc. Good luck!