Great suggestions guys! That pic of Tolleson's Weeping Blue is awesome. I have a Bush's Lace coming from Bloom River in a few weeks, but it is going in a different spot. Ken, I figured the clay soil still mattered unless the entire eventual root mass was bermed up in good soil... Am I wrong? I will do a small berm to keep the initial root ball from getting water logged. As far as the Cards go, we do love our baseball here in Saint Louis. It's part of the culture here, passed from parent to child. We have been blessed to have winners in almost every decade, supported by an organization that cares about winning. Even if you hate the Cards, you have to admit that those late innings in game 6 were some of the most exciting baseball ever! Wow, what a game that was!

angela - yeah, i have no idea what's with my roses and the image on david austin's website. my photos are a very accurate representation of what i see in person though. my blooms are somewhat pinkish on the outer petals, but transition towards that deep peachy orange color inside. the photo on the austin website seems to have a subdued orange cast to the entire image that makes me wonder ever since i ordered that rose. so i'm not surprised that mine came out looking different. i don't know if it's just blooming differently this year, but mine have really only come close in color to the DA image when the floor has almost completely aged and lost most of it's color. it then becomes this dusty pink-peach color uniformly. i'll see if i can dig up some of the photos of the more aged blooms. i was planning on making a post of different austins as their blooms age anyway - to show the color and bloom shape changes.

There is usually quite a difference in what a vendor would sell a set for and what you might get individually. I like to check COMPLETED AUCTIONS on E-bay (there is no set of this china listed there today, but there are pieces); in advanced search you can check to see completed auctions. This tells you how the auction turned out. Green letters are those where a bidder won; red means no bids. There are sometimes people in antique malls who will buy china for resale; I imagine they don't give much because they aren't going to ask much either.

water when a plant needs water ... insert a finger.. and find out how it all works in your soil ... some needle loss is not uncommon are transplanting ... and after the first winter.. the future is all in the buds.. and what they do this spring ... and you dont mention how big the transplant was .. nor if it was ball and burlap ... you need to provide pix if you want anything more than WAGS ... and no one can tell you how it works in your soil .... in your yard... in your area ... ken https://sites.google.com/site/tnarboretum/Home/planting-a-tree-or-shrub