I live in the northland area of Kansas City and have been building a hummingbird garden; looking to fill an immediate void where I want the bee balm. I have some 3" plants (Jacobs Cline) on order from Springhill Nursery, but they may not ship until later on; they said as late as October. I have English Ivy in plentiful portions, same with Virginia Creeper to trade. I have a limited supply of hostas, ferns, and salvia that I would be willing to part with (plant for plant) for a good healthy cluster or two of the Jacobs Cline Monarda (not interested in pink bee balms that are subject to mildew) Don't know the proper names of the hostas, but have some Japanese Painted Ferns. Also, if you are interested in tree starters; I have Hickory Nut and Pin Oak trees that take root like weeds here. Easy to find 1 to 2 feet starters on them here and there. This post was edited by Ani1959 on Mon, Sep 1, 14 at 14:46

I live in the northland. First they need to check any rules to see what changes they can make some will not allow anything other than in pots. From the discription of one tree in a field I think they live in Kansas City North of the river which has multiple types of land. Theirs is probably all fill. North Kansas City is a small town in itself. North Kansas City is next to the Missouri river in a flat area which which may be soggy when we have too much rain. My DH just told me there is a retirement residence in a part where they tore down all the senior apartments and build taller buildings. I would suggest thymes, zinnas. Kansas City has numerous gardening societies. One of the umberella groups is the Garden Center Association. It is a group of various garden groups that used to use a building in a park called Loose Park just south of the plaza area. This groups has a meeting the third Saturday of the month normally at the MO Conservation Department building just south of 4700 Troost. Coffee and goodies at nine am and various types of lectures at 9:30. Center has wonderful gardens behind the building for different types of woodlands, ponds, grasslands, etc. Amazing how much is packed in such a small area. If you can post the general area of the northland I can give better suggestions and locations of nurseries and plant that can provide decent plants at a reasonable cost.

How good are you building the sucker? New home should have good windows. If it were mine, it would be foamed rather than have batts in the wall and blown in the attic. They are using bottom of the line equipment and the upgrades are outrageous, typical of new construction. You gain no energy savings going to 2 stage so skip that. Upgrading to the XP16 doesn't boost efficiency much unless the furnaces are upgraded to high efficiency fan motors. That would be the G60V, they'd probably be horribly expensive on that upgrade too. So $3800 to save $50 (probably not even that) a year, that's a good payback. Not.

I'm still leaning that way too, Sam. I asked my friend to send me a closeup photo so I can scrutinize the leaf and leaf arrangement on the stem. Thanks for confirming my thoughts. :-)