Thanks for the replies. Don, I agree with your assessment as well. I keep mine because it is an outstanding spring bloomer, IMO right up there in beauty with Kwanzan cherry and similar trees. And, it really is a rather attractive tree the rest of the summer, with nice glossy foliage, but not worth bothering to pick up the nuts. I can't resolve the grafted v. seedling debate, but I sort of suspect that some people out there, especially those selling on e-bay, might be selling seedlings from their original, which may have been grafted. I know they can grow, I've had them sprout under the tree some times, but never saved one for replanting. NOT that this really matters -- point is, not worthwhile as a nut tree. I planted two suppossedly zone 5 hardy paper-shell almonds this spring from One Green World, I'll see if they make the winter for me this year, and if so, how well they do in the future. Dennis SE Michigan

Write him back and tell him you have a method of shipping that you prefer to use and you need his full address and phone number for the shipper to deliver it. Not to worry you will trust him for payment after he receives it and only after it meets with his full approval. But you do need to write an honest money contract and though embarassed to ask, the contract laws do require from him a single $100 us bill to initiate the transaction. Another words, make him a hell of a deal and try to get a measly hundred from him.

Waurika, I don't grow almonds, but they do grow here. Garden writer Louise Riotte grew them in Carter County. A member of this forum who posted under the name "River" grew them in NW OK and got a good crop, but River hasn't posted here in quite some time. Telow is the current forum member who mentioned planting an almond tree on the apple tree thread. Almonds are grown exactly like all other stone fruit trees (stone fruits are the ones with pits, or stones, like peach, plum, apricot, cherry, nectarine, pluot, etc.). The only big problem with stone fruits is that they tend to bloom too early some years and then you lose the crop to a late freeze. With my stone fruit trees, I am happy if I get a great harvest once every three years, a so-so harvest once every three years and no harvest once every three years (well, not happy in the no harvest year, but understand that comes with the weather we have here). If I remember correctly, 2010 was the best harvest ever, 2011 was no harvest, and 2012 was a really good harvest, but not as good as 2010's. In a perfect world, stone fruit would give a good harvest every year, but OK weather is not a perfect world. I do not grow apples or pears because I have no patience when it comes to cedar apple rust and fire blight. I grow stone fruit, figs, berries and brambles, and citrus in pots. I'd like to grow pome fruit like apples and pears, but never seem to get around to planting them.(I have too much garden and too little time as it is.) You need a soil test because without one you have no idea what the soil needs added to it, if anything. My clay soil doesn't need much added to it in order to grow healthy, productive fruit trees because red clay like mine tends to be very high in minerals and, thus, high in fertility, though I add organic matter to improve both its ability to drain and its ability to hold water in drought. My sandy/silty band of soil does need a lot of work before anything will grow in it but once I've improved it, fruit trees love it. If a catalog describes the almond as self-pollinating, then it is. The plant breeders and retailers give accurate pollination descriptions because they want people to succeed with their plants. Self-pollinating fruit trees do not need a second variety near them as a pollinator, but often they will produce better if there is a second variety around that enables cross-pollination. Container gardening has become a bigger part of my gardening experience ever since the incredibly wet years of 2004 and 2007 when we had flooding and ground that stayed incredibly wet for months. Those wet years seem like such a distant memory now. I love container gardening. Right now I am toying with the idea of growing most of my 2013 tomatoes in containers just to give the soil in the raised beds in the main garden a break. My favorite containers are molasses feed tubs given to me by a friend who is a rancher. I have about 45 of them, but also grow in other containers too. My favorite container for growing lettuce is a cattle feed trough because ground-dwelling pests seldom can climb up into that feed trough. I also grow lettuce in large, flat tubs in the greenhouse. I can grow lettuce in the ground in fall but have a harder time with it in the ground in the spring because the wildlife devours many of the plants as soon as they sprout, likely because there's not a lot of green plants around in early spring so the wild things flock to whatever ones they can find. Containers can solve a multitude of problems, but filling them up with a good, soil-less mix can get expensive. Leaf miners are an issue with any tomato plant (and many other types of plants as well). You can use a preventive insecticide if looking at them bothers you. I just ignore them on most plants. I raise spinach,Swiss chard and other greens in spring under floating row cover to exclude the miners. In the fall/winter garden, I don't think I have seen leaf miners on a single plant. I simply prefer to raise my own tomato transplants from seed because it allows me to grow the varieties I choose and it allows me to have some control over their size and age at transplant time. In Oklahoma's ever-changing weather, timing tomato plantings precisely helps you get a better crop because an early planting helps ensure they set fruit before the temperatures get too hot for good fruitset, and I try to get my seed sown early enough that my plants are a nice size at transplant time. Also, I prefer to plant much earlier than recommended even though that means I will have to employ some protective measures to keep the plants from dying during a late freeze. I have no problem with planting purchased tomato plants either, but if you plant a lot of them, it can get pretty expensive and, as you noted, you sometimes bring home pests or even diseases on purchased plants. Someone else will have to advise you on climbing roses as I don't grow them here. I planted a lot of roses after we moved here in 1999, but either flooding rains or drought or black spot have gotten most of them over the years. All I have left is some no-name climbing roses outside my kitchen window, and one beautiful Graham Thomas rose on the south side of the house. When I lived in Texas, I grew a climbing 'Don Juan' that was spectacular, 'Iceberg' and a gorgeous yellow climber whose name I no longer remember. It might have been 'Golden Showers'. I've been working on improving soil in an area along our south property line that would be great for roses because it is in full sun and always will be since the power line is directly overhead. However, when I get that soil improved enough to plant something into it, I'll likely plant blackberries there. We built our house in what is essentially a large clearing in the woods. It was open area at the time, but of course we did plant shade trees for relief from the summer sun. As the trees now have reached a nice size, the planting areas in our yard are evolving from full sun areas to partial shade, dappled shade or even full shade areas, and my plantings are changing accordingly. That means mostly more ground cover type plants near the house and fewer flowers. I now grow most my flowers in a border around the veggie garden, inside the 8' fence where they are safe from the deer herd. Over the years, the deer have destroyed much of what I grow outside the fenced garden too, so I no longer plant much out there in the unprotected areas. Dawn

Last night, late, when I was typing this up, I just knew I was way too wordy, included too much blah blah blah, and left nothing for anyone else to add. Reading this today told me how very wrong I was! (Well, I may still have been wordy and blahed out everybody but at least there were a bunch of things still to be covered.) I'm going to disagree with the comment about 'flakes'. Any kind of commentary in an ad that attributes bad motives, bad attitude, or total lack of trust in one's fellow man, no matter how well-deserved, turns me off. I like dealing with nice people and until I prove not to be so nice myself, I have to hope that others will think the best of me. Some people do very well with email addresses only. And if you are one of them, then, so be it. You can certainly put a deal together via email, we do it on Ebay all the time. Even arrangements to meet can be done that way, although speaking on the phone once you are at that stage, can help to alleviate stress and work out the kinks. I do hate all the phone calls attached to people who don't show up. But its kind of a necessary part of doing things this way. Here's how I handle it when there are multiple persons interested in same item. In December I put a set of drapes on CL with several pictures and my price. I got multiple emails and responded to each one with verification that I still had the drapes and included my phone number and told them to call if they wanted to view. Then, the calls started. People wanted them. One lady wanted to do a Paypal payment right then, so she would be sure of getting them. Now, Paypal would work for me. I use it for Ebay all the time and it means you got paid. But for someone local, I still don't really like the idea of someone paying before they see the item in person. Anyway, I arranged with her for her husband to come the next morning, but told her he needed to call first in case they were sold. I had Lady #2 call and tell me she absolutely wanted them, was 45 minutes away, and would I hold them for her? If she had said she was on her way, I would have done it. Once someone has arranged to come right away, I will at least give them the benefit of the doubt. But she wanted to come the next night. Again, I said, that's fine, but before you come you need to call to make sure they aren't sold. Then, Lady #3 called me 4 times in 15 minutes to arrange to drive the 7 or 8 minutes it would take for her to get to my house. Her children were yelling in the background and she had to keep hanging up to deal with it. She finally called back a little bit later and said it was just too hard and she might come the next day. So, now I have 3 definites, but no one is actually en route. I get more emails and I reply that drapes are still available, answer the questions, and tell them to call if they want to come. Next morning, I get one phone call from the lady who wanted to Paypal. Her husband is on his way down the hill and will be at my house in 30 minutes if they are still there. I tell her I will wait for him. He comes, he sees, he pays, we're good. Lady #3 never calls back. Lady #2 who begged me to save them, never calls back. I put Sold in the ad. I continue getting phone calls for 2 days and emails for about 2 weeks. I could have probably sold this set of drapes 3 times over. And I don't know why. I think it was timing. I had Craigslisted them 6 weeks earlier and got absolutely no interest. And so many people were very disappointed to have missed them. But again, unless someone tells me they are leaving right away to head for my house, I am not promising to save them for anyone. Red