blown, Why not just buy from a reputable nursery, such as Mesa Gardens, rather that shopping from Ebay? You've got a neighbour here (chadec) who's got a wonderful garden going. You might email him and ask for some leads, but the Ebay path is too often fraught with disappointment, whereas when you deal with someone reputable, that's clustered with happiness.

Yes, Alisande, cause you're expecting to make some decent money on your book. I would pay taxes too. But if you sold 10 books, would you pay declare that? If someone wrote a book and sold only ten copies, I would assume the book was self-published. In that case, the author laid out a sum of money to the vanity press, and it's highly unlikely the sale of ten copies would have covered the cost of printing, much less made a profit. Isn't profit what it's all about? If we sell a share of stock for less than we paid for it, that represents a capital loss. Too bad we can't do this with garage sale items. :-) Jasdip, I'm not disagreeing with you. In fact, I think you summed it up well in your first post when you mentioned people whose sales represent "a sole or large part of their income."

Ok Salt, not a good idea....... Here is another idea to save the house. Build a concrete flood wall around the house. Make the wall wide -like a patio all the way around the house, that would look really pretty with potted flower trees and patio sets......,but it can be very expensive though.......may be diy?

Oh boy this sucks;)! Euphorbia ingens are cold hardy down to about 28F. So from now on these will need to be protected during the coldest days and nights. I think you've learned that lesson;). Somebody should have made you aware of this when you purchased them. You live in a zone where the temps get down to 10F-15F so the seller should have least tried to sell you frost cloths at the time of purchase. I'm sure those Euphorbias were not cheap. This is tough a one because they're big and the pics aren't very clear. So it's hard to tell what's going on. The areas that look bad are they mushy? Regardless if they are mushy or not there is frost damage. The growth tip is destroyed. So those parts will no longer grow, but will branch on the sides:). So one of two things will happen or a little bit of both. The areas that have been damaged will either dry up like this. The above pic shows frost damage on my Euphorbia grandicornis from last winter. See how the damage just stopped and dried up. I probably will cut eventually. Or the damaged areas will get mushy and spread. Luckily your Euphorbias are on the bigger side so you can kind of wait and see. Keep a close eye on them. Watch for changes. I honestly wouldn't chop quite yet. Wait and see how things play out. If you notice things take a turn for the worse you will have to cut:(. E. ingens can take temps down to 28F, but for most of my plants I don't like to let them go as low as they can go. At least without some major protection. Any growth tips you see that don't have any damage cover with styrofoam cups or similar. This will help protect them. Heck I would even cover the damaged tips;). Then cover with the frost cloth. I know I didn't give that much advice, but this is exactly what I would do. I just think if you go and chop now it may be a little premature. I mean there is definitely damage, but I would just wait and see what the Euphorbias will do.