Despite the original posters overly extensive post, with certain questionable content, the central point is still quite vaild. We as a nation spend more money on grass than on any other crop. That by itself should be reason enough. Read up on the history of lawns and you'll find that they were orginally created as a means of demonstrating wealth (aka, I have this big area and I can afford to do nothing with it except grow grass I can't eat) Regarding the comments of junegem13 and zachslc, you might want to read up on the legal history of this movement. As it turns out, most weed laws (ones based on hight, not on noxious weeds) are unconstitutional. Nonetheless, if you are in a city or subdivision and decide to do a wildflower meadow where there is not an reasonable ordinance, then you should notify your neighbors and the city about why you are doing and the legal preceedants. The EPA has all this information. Regarding property values, that was the original complaint neighbors made against one landowner when she converted her lawn into meadow. When they were unable to demonstrate an actual decrease in property values, the city ordinance was ruled unconstitutional. Afterwards, the neighbors decided if they couldn't beat her that they'd join her and replace their own yards with meadows. Property values in that one neighborhood are now some of the highest in the city (Specific names and places, are available if you want them). Time and time again, lawn alternatives done correctly have shown to raise values, not lower them. In Charlottesville, VA local government is working on an ammendment to exclude native meadows from our weed ordinance. Other cities are doing the same very quicky, especially since the weed ordinance as written by many localites constitutes a legal liability to local governments.

Herbal and Eric, Here's my two cents. I must say that I've found the comments by Scott, Harvestman and Jellyman the most useful for my purposes, living here in Maryland, and would take what they say very seriously. I agree with the suggestion to try persimmons for Herbal. I have found them to be trouble free (so far), though the branches may need support when they set fruit. They are also very pretty trees. I agree with Scott about quince. I have a variety supposedly more resistant to disease than others. Well, yes, it is, meaning that while it gets diseased it keeps on going. Unfortunately I lost all fruit on it last year to disease and it may serve as a disease reservoir for my other trees. Don't confuse regular quince with flowering quince, however, as they are different species. Flowering quince (chaenomeneles) have set plenty of fruit for me, and have beautiful flowers in the spring (but are ugly bushes the rest of the year). You can do many of the same things with their fruit as with regular quince (Cydonia). I'd also recommend figs, particularly Celeste, if you have a sheltered spot facing the south -- perhaps a south-facing wall. I am not sure how worried I would be about disease in Eric's case, with just a few trees on an acre. Scott has a lot of trees in a small space, which no doubt increases disease pressure. I have had relatively little problem with disease here in MD with fewer trees and good sun and air drainage and a late winter/early spring spray of lime-sulphur + oil. Some of the new disease-resistant apples really do avoid the big three diseases (Fire blight, cedar apple rust, and scab) and taste pretty good. You will still need to do something about insect pests. I've found the big three here in MD in my small orchard are: plum curculio, oriental fruit moth, and codling moth. Fruit moth is particularly hard to deal with without spraying and is my number one problem. I use a combination of Surround and bagging (search for posts on this), which works well on pears and apples for curculio and codling moth, but I have ended up spraying insecticide on stone fruit, since Surround simply has not stopped oriental fruit moth. The organically approved Spinosad has worked, but is not registered for the large number of sprays needed to stop this pest, so I ended up spraying permethrin last year. Regarding varieties, I agree with Scott about Montmorency sour cherry and with the need for netting. You might also put in a smaller North Star sour cherry, which I have found to do well. With apples the most disease resistant include Williams Pride (summer), Enterprise and Liberty; Goldrush has some disease resistance and certainly tastes better, but I believe it is susceptible to cedar apple rust, a common disease around here. With elderberries you will find that planting the selected varieties found in nurseries on line will give you a lot of fruit. Finally, Backyard fruit growers in Lancaster will be having their winter meeting on Saturday Jan 15 up near Lancaster, and this meeting will have a talk by Ike Kerschner of North Star Orchards near Philadelphia on fruit growing in this part of the world. He probably knows more about growing plums around here than anyone. If you have a day to spare, you might find this an interesting event. If you send me a personal message I'll send you notes I took from a talk Ike gave on plums last year. Here is a link that might be useful: Backyard Fruit Growers

Just for the sake of chronicling this experience, I ended up spraying right after my last reply. It took about 3 mins and exactly 1 gallon to do all the trees and some shrubs. The wind was so calm and I knew it was my only chance. It rains here about once or twice a month yet it will happen when i need it to stay dry. It looks like some light sprinkles now.

Trudi, Cecilia lives close to the location and posted some suggestions which I have quoted here: **************************** The closest hotel to the park is a Quality Inn a mile or two from the park, just off the I-95 exit. It used to be a Holiday Inn Express, but changed hands and was renovated a few years ago. It has an Italian restaurant adjacent to it, which just opened (I haven't even tried it yet!) . The reviews I've read about the hotel on the internet are mixed - some folks say it's a dump, others have praised it. Its address is 1401 Bloomfield Avenue, Baltimore, MD, 21227. There are several nice hotels in Baltimore's Inner Harbor, which is about 5 miles from the park site - I don't know what your budget is, though, and some of them are rather expensive. If you stayed downtown, however, you could enjoy some of the nearby tourist sites - Harborplace, the National Aquarium, etc. Another option would be to stay at one of the hotels near BWI Airport. The park is only a 10 minute drive or so from there (I even know a back way that avoids major highways). ************************ Balmer is a nice town and a day in the interharbor full of nice stuff. I was just at the aquarium with the kids last weekend; you can buy tickets online. There are many nice resturants we ate at McCormick and Shmidt. Also, if you like baseball Camden yards is also walking distance and tickets are cheap. Greg