I'll share it with you all, since we've steered this one to customer service. Occasionally I'll need something that can only be found at a retailer and I drive 1.5 hours to the place. The way they do things, you select what you need and find a sales person to radio in and start/add to your ticket. After you find everything you want, you go pay then come back and load. If you want something from heal in, sales will direct the yard crew to dig and reburlap when necessary. So here I am braving the impending rain storm, traipsing through the boxwoods when a crew member asks if he can help? I mildly surprised to hear english, say oh sure I'll take these 1st 10 green velvets. He yells to the crew and away they go, I say, don't wait for me I'll be awhile so just set them at the edge...thanks, he nods. later I'm just getting to the counter in the store when the storm hits, I pay and decide to wait it out as many customers were. A young man blusters in behind the counter and annouces on the PA, due to the storm they will be closing early then proceeds to irritatingly freak about someones 10 boxwood and who was it and did they even pay for them and are they going to get them yadda yadda, he ignores the soft spoken sales girl who is trying to say that I've paid and am standing right there. So I raise my voice a bit and tell him that I will load my plants when I have less chance of being hit by lightening! He's mad because the crew is evidently waiting and I say, tell them to go, I'll load myself... here it is, your moment of zen... He says, you can't load them, you don't know how heavy they are... mam, they're too heavy for you. OMG!!!! I look the boy in the eye, standing there in my company uniform and work boots, felcos at the ready and am perfectly stunned. and all I can say is a very sarcastic EXCUSE ME, who do you think will be planting them? me thinks the fat little effeminent boy has never lifted a boxwood himself, as I'm sure he thinks that hard work is for the latins... ARGH!

Jen, thanks for the links. I've got GNPS bookmarked, but unfortunately, just about everything they do is based in Atlanta and I'm about two hours away from Atlanta. I will try emailing them, though, and ask if they've considered expanding some of their plant sales and plant "rescues" state-wide. :) The landscaping for birds link was very helpful, thanks! Von, I'm in the suburbs. I've got a large yard, as suburbs go, but it's nothing that would support more than four or five large trees, and it's already got three large pine trees, and a pear tree and a peach tree that were here when I moved in. I'd really like to add some kind of large hardwood, but there's just not enough room for a canopy size tree. My next choice is the understory trees/large shrubs, so in that line, I've got a shrub dogwood, a chokecherry, a hackberry, a mulberry, two young pawpaws and I'm trying to find a good serviceberry to add. I want a species or cultivar of serviceberry that won't get more than about 20 feet high at most and that won't require much care as far as keeping it disease free. I might be able to add a small cherry tree, too, but that would be about the limit of trees I could fit in the yard. I already have two viburnums and three more on the way in the spring. I've tried to grow two elderberries and they both died; I don't know what the problem is, but I'm not going to try elderberries again, at least not for a few years. I'm adding a couple of blueberry bushes and some muscadine grape vines very soon, and I've got an eastern ninebark coming in next month. The only other shrubs I have are lantana (the birds keep planting more), turk's cap, beautyberry, a huge gardenia, Joe-pye weed, butterfly bush, some bush hibiscus, a Clerondendrum, and some roses that were here when I moved in. I don't particularly care for roses, but these have been mostly behaving themselves and providing the occasional rose hip for the birds, so I've left them alone. I'm planning to take the butterfly bush out this year (since I recently learned it's considered a minor invasive in GA) and replace it with some kind of native similar in wildlife benefit. I'm looking for ideas of what types of birds (and other animals) like what types of plants, so I can have a good variety in my yard. I do have a little more room for planting perennials and vines, since I can fit more of those in together, and I've got some seed producing perennials and nectar producing perennials and vines already. I'm planning to add more natives this year and get rid of some of the non-natives that were here when I moved in two years ago. When I moved in, the yard was practically useless to most wildlife, nothing but lawn, roses, boxwoods, and the pine trees and pear & peach trees; most of the species of animals that were here were invasive pests. There were only a few species of birds in the yard on a regular basis and about half of those were exotic pests. I've been slowly changing out the pest plants for natives, and hoping the animals will follow suit in time. It was quite a change from my previous house, which had over 40 species of birds, several species of reptiles & amphibians, dozens and dozens of insects & spiders, and about a dozen mammal species on a regular basis. That yard was even smaller than my current one, but it was a much more natural setting and it had been long established. I hope this yard will build up to that level over time.

I've tried the same, thing, Skivvia, and couldn't find any suitable plants. We tried chemical repellants but to no effect. "Blessed" as we are with a cat-loving neighbour who used to boast of feeding 11 cats at the back door - not her cats, you understand, but ones that she just fed out of the generosity of her heart (and the count didn't seem to include the 3 recent litters, two of which had been born in our yard) we had to do something. The feeding was enough to attract the cats, but not, to judge by the frequent sad little piles of feathers and the disappearance of our much-loved colony of Cunningham's skinks, to keep them in as much food as they needed. So we bought a trap, the council ones being booked up for 6 months ahead. It cost about $150, and we were a bit sour about the need to spend it. We notified all our neighbours that we would be trapping, and took home written descriptions of their pets so as to be sure we didn't send their loved ones to the RSPCA. They all were quite sure that their cats never left their own yards. Some, by our observations, were correct - but we recognised some of the descriptions as being of our a few of our regular feline visitors and noticed that their visits suddenly ceased after we'd spoken to their owners. We suspected that the notification that we were setting a trap would have done the same job, without the expenditure, had it not been for the 11-cat lady. Even she announced that she had decided to send some of her lot to the RSPCA. (She's still known in the area as "the one with all the cats", so they didn't all go, but we aren't finding feathers any more.) We caught 4. One pretty kitten got given away to a family which wanted one, and the other 3 were handed into custody, together with a donation to cover a fortnight's food. Apparently the RSPCA try to give them away, but has them put down as humanely as possible after a fortnight. One cat we caught tallied with a neighbour's description, so we got them over to inspect it, but it wasn't theirs. We are aware that many, probably most, cat-lovers are broadminded enough to like other animals as well,and don't accept the slushy sentimental line that their cat has given up its carnivorous instincts. Thank goodness for cat-owners who accept responsibility for this. We didn't like sending cats to a possible death, but neither did we like the deaths of the lizards and birds. I don't know how we could have been fairer in the circumstances. We humans have upset the ecological balance so badly that laissez faire seems less humane than the alternative. But we wish we could have just found some cat repellant plants! Trish

Kelly I'm interested to know how things went for you? I have winter gem as well as green velvet and green mountain ... I have also had issues with winter gem and winter burn despite them being in a protected spot - I'm not a fan of the winter gem and will probably replace them... my GV and GM are planted in full sun and do well even in New England winters - the GV will slightly bronze with harsh winter winds but I have never had this happen with GM which seems very hardy... I suggest planting either in that spot and buy from a reputable nursery not big box store - the other issue to consider are spider mites which can devastate boxwood ... I use neem oil which is great for controlling them