That is what I've been told also, Maggie... We've always used the 55 degree rule of thumb... That means that once it warms up to where the evening temps are 55 degrees then all will be well... Now Mr. Clifford doesn't belive that but then again we have much better success with ours than he does with his... But he doesn't mulch either... We mulch heavily with straw... This keeps the moisture in the ground, cuts down on weeds and also holds heat...

Back to the redbud... I learned about their roots the hard way... We planted one that we dug up and it had only been in a few years when we decided that we'd rather have that space for other stuff... It had grown to big to dig up so I tied a 1/2 rope around the poor thing and pulled it out with my 4WD truck... When I did that I also rolled up a 30 foot wide swath of grass... Heck of a mess...

B~