Several years ago I taught a workshop at the Boston Building Materials Coop (now Boston Building Resources) on residential exterior trim work.  I don’t remember all the details of what I said, but I emphasized the importance of using materials that would survive exposure to New England weather without rotting.  The villain of my story was the fast-grown #2 pine that is available cheaply (and temptingly) at many lumber yards along with the uninformed or unscrupulous carpenters who install it.  I claimed that it rarely lasted more than 10 years without succumbing to fungi and other critters. It turned out that I was ruining the day of one of the workshop participants.  Hundreds of feet of the pine in question had been installed on his…