Well, there are all sorts of claims out there about long-lived trees. And all sorts of criteria for deciding what form there trees might grow in. There are reports of creosote bushes in the American West living for more than 10,000 years with the bush slowly growing outward from an original bush and forming a ring. One plant? One root system? Well, I will leave all this alone, except to say that for me an old tree should grow from one continuously growing trunk, preferably one trunk that puts on a complete growth ring each year around the entire trunk. If you get my drift, you know which trees this would disqualify. Anyway, all that aside, I am fascinated that Norway spruce is a contender now. As some of you know I have been shamelessly promoting Norway spruce in these forums ever since I joined a couple of years ago. And one of the several misconceptions about NS that have been promulgated in some popular but ridiculously wrong-headed publications is that the tree is inconveniently short-lived. In fact, NS is at least moderately long-lived, with a "norm" under very good conditions of 400 years or so. But now? Wow! Very interesting! --Spruce

I have to tell you that the extent of my knowledge concerning Rugby consists of (1) having owned a childhood guinea pig by the name and (2) the understanding that there are some stylish shirts. Although I'm not so sure about that last point because when I did a quick Google image search with the terms "RUGBY PLAYERS" all that came up were pictures of naked guys. So here's hoping you're up for a lot of fun with the World Cup and that everyone isn't actually going to be naked. :)

Thanks for posting Violet. I took my kids to visit and let them pour a cup.

Thank you both. I am leaning toward using World Cup for the spot in front of Blue Angel because I want "different" for this prime location. But midday sun is hard for most hostas to handle. Lindalana, I knew you had both, from the Best Golds thread, so I was wondering how they did for you. It's only a single eye field grown division, though, so if I do use it there, I'll have a long wait. But I waited 4 years for Sun Power to start looking like anything (which it never did), so what's a few more years, LOL!