OK, we'll work on it Mike, and you can post pictures. Ecologystudent's will be easy. Get your new containers ready with a good, coarse, porous mix in the bottom and a pile ready for backfill. Remove the tree from the container and gently shake out as much of the existing potting medium as possible. You can poke and prod at the root ball, it won't scream. Some suggest that you wash all of the soil off, but I don't do that. Lay the plant down on a cutting surface and remove at least 1/4 to 1/3 of the roots from the bottom. Watch out for all the blood! (just kidding) You might find, when you shake them up a bit, that you can simply hold up the plant in one hand and take a pair of sharp scissors to the bottom most roots. This will be more like a quick trim off the bottom rather than the slicing that is required for a more developed root system. Repot immediately into the new container with the fresh, porous mix. Water thoroughly. Watering should always be done on an 'as-needed- basis, as Mike says. Even in ground plantings shouldn't be tied to some sort of arbitrary calendar schedule. Container grown plants will vary in their watering needs depending upon lots and lots of factors, such as type of container, type of potting medium, size of the plant compared to container, health and vigor of plant, time of year, temperature, humidity, blah, blah. Use your fingers to judge when watering is required. When it is time to water, do so generously. Little sips are detrimental to the root/soil system. Don't let newly root pruned plants dry out too much between drenchings. Give them a few weeks to get caught up.

First off, I'd like to say that I hope you are doing ok these days with what's going on there. Sorry you have to see that happening...Welcome here. How long have you had that tree? How do you know how old it is? Watering comes to rely on many variables...How hot, how much light, what kind of mix, how many roots are in the pot, how much soil is in there, how big the pot is, if your tree is taking up moisture or not , and others..There is no one size fits all when watering...It pains me to see a nursery tell people directions like that. Beautiful fuit! Looks like the leaves are suffering a bit..Do you have any idea of what kind of mix it is or how long it takes to dry out? Does it look porous? MIke This post was edited by meyermike_1micha on Wed, Sep 3, 14 at 11:52

how big is the spot you have ... how about a pic.. whats the plan???? do keep in mind... that even things that are called dwarfs .. do not stop growing at some magical height .... the term is used to describe the annual growth rate .. which is slower than other plants in the same family .. but they will just keep chugging away.. over the years ... ken

Most yews are dioecious as well - that means you need both a male yew plant and a female yew plant to generate the berries/cones. And if you were to list all the plants currently growing in your garden, I'm sure a fairly high percentage of them would be toxic to some degree......that's just the nature of plants. It is always wise to be concerned and more importantly, aware of these issues but don't assign them more significance than they deserve. Hundreds of thousands of gardeners have gardened with both small children and pets and countless "toxic" plants for generations without any issues, myself included. And some a whole lot more "dangerous" than yews :-)