What you need to know is what is your soils pH and the nutrient blance and the best way to find that out is to contact you local office of the Cornell USDA Cooperative Extension Service about having a good, reliable soil test done. Then dig in with these simple soil tests, 1) Structure. From that soil sample put enough of the rest to make a 4 inch level in a clear 1 quart jar, with a tight fitting lid. Fill that jar with water and replace the lid, tightly. Shake the jar vigorously and then let it stand for 24 hours. Your soil will settle out according to soil particle size and weight. A good loam will have about 1-3/4 inch (about 45%) of sand on the bottom. about 1 inch (about 25%) of silt next, about 1 inch (25%) of clay above that, and about 1/4 inch (about 5%) of organic matter on the top. 2) Drainage. Dig a hole 1 foot square and 1 foot deep and fill that with water. After that water drains away refill the hole with more water and time how long it takes that to drain away. Anything less than 2 hours and your soil drains too quickly and needs more organic matter to slow that drainage down. Anything over 6 hours and the soil drains too slowly and needs lots of organic matter to speed it up. 3) Tilth. Take a handful of your slightly damp soil and squeeze it tightly. When the pressure is released the soil should hold together in that clump, but when poked with a finger that clump should fall apart. 4) Smell. What does your soil smell like? A pleasant, rich earthy odor? Putrid, offensive, repugnant odor? The more organic matter in your soil the more active the soil bacteria will be and the nicer you soil will smell. 5) Life. How many earthworms per shovel full were there? 5 or more indicates a pretty healthy soil. Fewer than 5, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, indicates a soil that is not healthy. to see what more your soil needs to get to that good, healhty condition that will grow strong and healthy plants. Here is a link that might be useful: Cornell CES

nature Hills nursery lists that a Dawn Redwood tree does well in zones as cold as 4. I planted a Dawn Redwood tree in the mid Spring of 2008. It did not seem to grow much that first year of `08, but by 09 that tree had grown enough to need some early on corrective pruning. The by last fall of 09 the tree that I had first plant as an about 2.5 feet tall whip was well structured with a nice main leader trunk and good strong lateral branches growing out all along that trunk. Even though I had not done the kind of pruning needed to create a raised conopy tree. Then to my amazement, all this Spring, once the tree broke its winter dormancy and leafed out again, wow! has it been growing. Just since April of this year that tree has grown 5 feet taller. And now that we are near the beginning of Summer that taller growth is filling in nearly as well as the old growth branched beneath. This is the fasted growing tree I have ever planted. It is now 8 feet tall and continuing to grow. It took two years to get it roots established well enough, but once that happened, it is growing nearly twice as fast as my thuja 'Green Giants' have grown. In fact my Dawn Redwood's trunk is becoming strong enough that I think this fall when it goes dormant, I will be able to prune away the lower 1/3 of the trees lateral branched and should end up will a very nice in appearance tree structure. So it should be, for you, worth it to take a look at the Dawn redwoods and seeing if you can plant an arrangement of Dawn Redwoods in a manner where they can cast shade in the spring, summer and eary fall onto your house similar to the way a tall building situated there could. Then in the Winter, when you desire for as much sun's warm as possible to reach the house, this Dawn Redwood would drop it's leaves and allow for such sun exposure. After you have gotten enough green leafed trees growing and find that you desire to add a few flowering trees, you could also consider planting the slower growing Sourwood trees that are rated to survive well in zones 5, and maybe even consider planting some of the more hardy cultivars of Stewartia trees

Check the soil. Doesn't matter if you "expect the soil to be an issue" or not. It can still be an issue. I refer to standard construction practices. Choose to believe this is a potential problem or not. I'm just trying to help you, beyond that it is up to you. Also compaction may not be your entire yard. But it is a very large potential problem ESPECIALLY on relatively recent construction. FWIW, I don't think the plane tree looks all that great either. It looks like the trunk is damaged from sun scald, probable from being too dry with the afternoon heat of the sun on it, and/or lack of water in the the winter if it was planted in the fall. Still I don't have any experience with those. If the trees were getting enough water, it would also wet in the immediately surrounding soil for at least a few inches, and the grass would show it. And for supposedly watering the lawn, it looks very very dry. You say you use a slow trickle hose, but you don't say for how long, or at what rate. Just because it is damp immediately below the mulch, does not mean that it is well watered through out the root ball. From all available information, it looks like not nearly enough water, and possible severe soil compaction as well. Choose to act upon this or not, it matters not to me. Arktrees

There are many superior faucet companies selling in North America, offering a large number of good to excellent faucet values. In fact, there has never been a better time to buy a faucet. The technology is edging ever closer to producing an actual lifetime faucet that never leaks, never tarnishes, and never needs repair. We are not there yet, but we are oh so close. There are also a lot of mediocre faucet companies selling products that are a not-so-good value. Distinguishing the good from the average and the average from the poor is what we try to do in our faucet reviews and ratings of over 100 faucet brands. And, once a year or so, usually in the late summer when things slow down a bit, we sit down to suss out the best of the best. Not necessarily the best faucet, but the best faucet for the money. This year it was a tough decision. But after lengthy consideration, we have come up with our three best value companies. The factors we weight in judging a faucet company are: The quality of its faucets, averaged over the past five years. We look especially for companies with high average scores that are improving from year to year. The strength of its warranty. No company with a less than lifetime faucet warranty on its mechanicals, cartridges or finishes can hope to compete. We do not think a 5- or 10-year warranty on a product that most buyers expect to last a lifetime is a sufficient guarantee of quality. So, if the company's warranty is is not a lifetime warranty, the company will probably not even be considered. Post-sale customer and warranty service. Many companies offer lifetime warranties on their faucets, but do not have a post-sale warranty service that is prepared to handle warranty and parts issues effectively. We test post-sale customer service and score it on a 0.0 to 5.0 point scale. No company that scores less than 4.0 can hope to compete against the top performers like Moen and California Faucets. Safety, reliability and lead-free certifications. A contender must have had its faucets certified as complying with the joint U.S./Canadian standards for safety and reliability (ASME A 112.18.1/CSA B125.1), and with the North American lead free standard (ANSI/NSF 61.9). An alarming number of faucet companies do not certify their faucets. Not having these mandatory certifications disqualifies a faucet company from consideration. A faucet must have been tested by an authorized independent testing facility and certified to meet both of these mandatory standards to be legal for installation in the U.S. and Canada. We have no reason to even look at a faucet that cannot be legally installed in North America. Best Value: North American Faucet Delta Delta Faucet Company 55 E. 111th Street. P O Box 40980 Indianapolis, IN 46280 800-345-3358 Overall Rating: 6-9 (Above Average to Excellent) The Delta Faucet Co. is a division of the giant Masco Corporation. It manufactures Brizo, Delta and Peerless faucets. This ranking applies to just the company's mid-priced Delta faucets. Delta is the faucet company that has been counted out so many times, that it should be punch drunk by now. When Moen came out with its single-handle washer-less faucets in the 1950s, everyone predicted that the long reign of Delta Faucets as the best selling brand in North America was over. Delta counter-punched a few years later with the Delta ball valve, a better valve in many ways than Moen's washer-less cartridge, less likely to wear out and easier to repair. Delta regained its crown. In the 1990s with the rush of European imports featuring the newest technology ceramic disk valves, Delta was again predicted to be soon on the ropes. Year after year passed as Delta clung stubbornly to its increasingly antiquated ball valve technology. Then, in 2008 after nearly two year's of persistent rumor that Delta was going to announce something big, it unveiled its Diamond Seal Technology® (DST) ceramic cartridge and InnoFlex® faucet waterway — Two innovations that are a leap ahead of existing technology. The DST cartridge pairs a diamond-powder-coated stationary ceramic disk with a non-coated rotating disk. Delta says this feature helps keeps the disks absolutely smooth since the diamond-coated disk continuously scrubs and polishes the other disk so they always mesh perfectly. It also continuously grinds away any mineral deposits that may insinuate themselves between the disks. The more you use it, the smoother it gets. The InnoFlex waterway is an equally impressive innovation. In an era during which faucet companies are scrambling to reduce the lead in their brass faucets in order to comply with the new lead-free limits of not more than 0.25% in a faucet, Delta simply bypassed the problem by routing the water in its faucets through a PEX tube. Water never comes in contact with the metal in the faucet, so it cannot possibly pick up any lead. PEX is a cross-linked polyethylene material that is flexible and very strong. It is now used in place of copper pipes in most residential plumbing installations. The new technologies, now seven years old and rapidly replacing the older technologies in Delta faucets, are, by all accounts, a stunning success. DST cartridges have been tested using the standard U.S./Canada disk durability protocol to 5 million off/on, hot/cold cycles without a failure -- or about 700 years of typical kitchen use. Delta makes faucets in Greensburg, Indiana, Jackson, Tennessee; and Morgantown, Kentucky. It has two more plants in Ontario: one in London and another in Cambridge, that mostly serve the Canadian market. Delta employs over 1,300 Americans in the U.S., and nearly the same number of Canadians in its various Canadian operations. Delta's customer service and warranty support is second only to Moen. Moen has the customer service organization that is the model to which others aspire but rarely reach. Delta's service is close, but was scored down again this year for hold times exceeding 5 minutes -- a problem that Delta does not seem able to cure. The Delta lifetime warranty on every component in its faucets, except the electronics in its hands-free faucets, is a big plus. Other companies limit the warranty on hoses, sprayers and some finishes to as little as one year. Delta, which uses only the latest technology PVD finishes, guarantees every finish for as long as you own the faucet. PVD finishes are variously estimated to be 10 to 20 times more durable and scratch resistant than the standard faucet finish: plated chrome. Delta is easily our value pick of the domestic faucet companies. For the price there is not another faucet in the world that can touch it. Best Value: European Faucet Cifial Cifial USA 6540 Peachtree Industrial Blvd. Suite A Norcross, GA 30071 800-528-4904 Overall Rating: 7-8 (Good to Very Good) Cifial, a relative newcomer to North America, just became eligible for consideration this year, and immediately jumped to first place ahead of our value leader for the past three years, Grohe. Cifial faucets are made in Portugal by Cifial S.G.P.S., S.A. a Portuguese manufacturer of mid-priced designer faucets. It is one of the better European designer faucet companies that sell in the U.S. and Canada, but also one of the least well known. Founded in Portugal in 1904, Cifial has over a century of plumbing and hardware manufacturing experience, and has a solid reputation in Europe for quality products. Cifial designs and manufacturers its own faucets in its state-of-the-art facility in Riomeao. Its talented in-house design staff has led the company to a number of prestigious European design awards since 1994, including the internationally coveted Red Dot award for design excellence. Cifial designs are traditional and transitional and fit well in most kitchens and baths. The company's Techo designs are contemporary, but conservative, far from pushing the envelope. The ceramic cartridges used in its faucets are from Flühs Drehtechnik, GmbH, a German firm located in Ludenscheid, Germany since 1926. Flühs (sometimes spelled Fluehs for English speakers) valves do not require lubricant, which can wear or wash away, making thee faucet operation stiffer over time. Flühs cartridges have a well-established reputation for reliability. Cifial guarantees its finishes, except living finishes, and all of the other components of its faucets for as long as the "original buyer owns the home in which the faucet is installed." Living finishes are not guaranteed, as is the industry custom. We rate Cifial's customer service good to very good. In our tests it scored 4.4 on a 5 point scale. Any score above 4.0 is acceptable. Customer service agents were knowledgeable, and went the extra mile to be helpful. Our installation tests, involving purely imaginary (but creative) problems with a faucet installation, were passed with ease. The installation instructions were clear and well illustrated. The company has no record with the Better Business Bureau, which generally means that the BBB has never received a complaint about the company. Priced at 30-50% below the prices of similar faucets from other European companies, the faucets are an exceptional value. Unlike other European faucet companies such as Franke and Blanco that no longer manufacture their own faucets, Cifial actually makes its faucets in its own factory, and in Europe, not in Indonesia, Viet Nam or Turkey. The lifetime Cifial warranty easily surpasses the five- and ten-year warranties offered by competing European companies selling faucets of equivalent quality. Cifial easily earns our nod as the best European faucet for the money sold in North America. Best Value: Asian Faucet Danze Globe Union Industrial Corp, Ltd. 2 Territorial Ct., Suite A Bolingbrook, IL 60440 888-328-2383 Overall Rating: 6-8 (Above Average to Very Good) Introduced to the U.S. in 2000, Danze is a name under which Globe Union Industrial Corp. has grown a major brand identity in the U.S. It is the most actively promoted of the many faucet, fixture and accessory brands owned by the gigantic Asian company controlled by the Ou-yang Ming family of Taichung, Taiwan.Globe Union is the dominant faucet manufacturer in Asia under its GOBO brand. Its faucets are made primarily in mainland Chinese factories by its subsidiary Shenzhen Globe Union Industrial Corp. (with a small bow to Canada for some automatic faucets). Globe Union is a full line manufacturer. Like the Masco line of Peerless/ Delta/ Brizo faucets, Globe Union's products range widely in quality, an effect of making products at every price point. In the Globe Union lineup, Danze is positioned as the mid-upper tier faucet line, roughly equivalent to Delta. As a whole, the Danze line seems to be well made. Many of the faucets are very stylish, and while Globe Union in the past mostly copied existing European and American designs, the company has recently begun introducing its own styles and they are good, some are even excellent. Danze has been a marketing success, having grown to impressive proportions in fifteen years with hundreds of brick and mortar retailers and a strong internet presence. Globe Union seems to have conquered the parts and warranty issues that plagued the brand's early years. In our latest customer service tests, Danze scored above the 4.0 out of 5.0 that we consider satisfactory. We believe the Danze faucets are a good to excellent value for the price. They are generally of better quality than the run-of-the-mill Chinese faucet. The proprietary Danze ceramic cartridge valve is very good, and the Danze lifetime warranty, even with its procedural defects, where most importers of Chinese faucets offer 10 years at best, seals the deal. Danze is our choice for best value in Asian-made faucets.