Ani, leaves harbor pest eggs and disease spores. By removing the leaves you open the canes up so they can be sprayed with the Neem or a dormant oil spray. It really has nothing to do with hardiness or root growth, just the general health of the plant. Roses in our local climate start to drop their oldest leaves as a natural growth cycle. By removing the leaves, we're doing what nature is going to do for us anyway. The only spray I use in my garden is one round of Volck's Dormant Oil spray after I prune in January. When using any oil-based spray, the temperature has to be under 60F, including reflected heat coming off block walls, so it can be tough getting even one round sprayed. The dormant oil spray helps to suffocate eggs and spores and should only be sprayed when the roses have no leaves. Because I often have roses from other people's yards come through mine for raffles or trades, I'm also trying to keep a disease called San Jose Scale out of my garden. Some great nurseries to purchase roses from in the metro-Phoenix area are Berridges, 4600 block E Camelback, Bakers, 40th Str & Osborn and Harpers, Hayden, south of Thomas. These aren't the only nurseries, of course, but they're well-known for quality roses and knowledge of rose culture.

I need some help/advice. The only thing i have ever planted are vegetable plants. last spring a co-work gave me a fig tree cutting. Tt was about 6 inches high and had no leaves on it. i repotted it into a five gallon container and gave it a shot of MG fertilizer for tomatoes as that is the only fertilizer I had. It gree very well and i got some very small figs on it but that ws it.My friend told me to expect that and that i would get figs next year. He told me wait until the leaves fell off (I live in upstate New York and my first frost date is around Sept 15th. He said to put the container in my garage away from light which i did and to water it about once a month which i did. This spring i put the container out and gave it the same fertilizer. I am in zone 6b and my last frost date is May 15th. At first nothing seemed to happen. he advised me to check all the branches and to cut a little off the top of each one. if the wood was brown to keep cutting until i reached green which i did and all of a sudden the thing took off. It got so big that I decideed to put it into a 10 gallon container. before long the tree was filled with green figs. in all there are now about 2 and a half dozen very large figs on the plant. I checkeda few website and determined that the figs i had were called Conadria because of their light green color. I also noticed that the figs were very hard and this was now into August. I spoke with someone from Willis Oorchard who told me that the figs should ripen before my last frost date. I also found out that they grow bst in zone 8 and above. two weeks ago I noticed two of the figs were turning a purple color. that week were were hit with heavy rains and when it stopped two of the figs were nice and soft so I picked them and they were very sweet however the rest ofthe figs are still hard and some are starting to turn purple. Is there a chance that the figs will ripen before i get my first frost?? what type of fertilizer should I be using and how much and how often. I know that when my tomaotes do not ripen in time i put them in a brown paper bag in a dark closet and they will turn red. Will the ame thing happen with figs?? I forgot to mention that i plantedthe tree in MG potting soil for containers. I will be heading up to Canada tomorrow morning so if canyone can give me advice before then it would be appreciated. Thanks

Becca: I'm not familiar with the houseplant "Orange Star" so I googled it. Came up with a couple of possibilities. Maybe you could do the same and look at the images that come up to help in the ID of your plant. Meanwhile, if the instructions say "bright light" then full sun, and definitely southwest sun, is too much. Move it out of direct sun. Also, since it's "drooping", you may have overwatered to try to perk it up. We humans need water but we drown if we don't get air. The same goes for your plant. "Moist" soil doesn't mean soppy. You may need to let it dry out a bit. When you repotted, I'm hoping you chose containers with drainage holes that allow excess water to escape. You're a good mom to help at the preschool. I think you're trying to be too good to the plant and providing too much sun and H2O. June

My POV based on my experiences and years of interacting with innumerable growers on the topic of container media: 1. It's about impossible to tell if a failing plant is getting too much or too little water- even with Al's help (too little is very common). If a failing plant is in a well-made gritty mix and is collapsing due to a watering issue, it's almost certainly due to not watering frequently enough. You actually have to work quite hard to over-water plants in a medium that holds little or no perched water. There are some plants that can be overwatered because their nature is to not tolerate much water in the soil at ALL (cacti, quiescent mesembs, .....), but for the overwhelming majority of plants discussed on this forum, it would be difficult to over-water. Any plant will fail if you don't water it, regardless of the medium it's in. It's a fact that plants in the gritty mix will need to be watered more often than plants in Miracle Grow and others similar. If someone doesn't want to water more often than these soils require watering, don't use the gritty mix - simple. 2. In dry or hot weather, it can be extremely difficult to provide enough water. Until the entire pot is colonized with roots, you might need to water daily, or even more often. Many of the plants I grow would be considered large houseplants in very small pots, so my plant mass to soil volume requires much closer attention to watering than someone growing in larger pots that would hold 2-4 times the amount of soil relative to plant mass. I pretty much use the 1:1:1 ratio for all those plants normally grown indoors. In winter, under lights I have no problem keeping plants hydrated for 4 or 5 days, and in summer when houseplants are outdoors, I water daily or every other day, depending on the weather (primarily sun, temps, and wind). When a plant is newly planted in the gritty mix, it's necessary to retain a mental image of where the roots are and make sure you water frequently enough that the medium surrounding the roots doesn't grow dry. Generally speaking, these newly repotted plants should be in shade and out of wind to minimize transpirational water loss. I can't remember the last time I lost a plant due to the roots drying out after a repot. If you don't feel as though you want to nurse your plants through the just repotted stage - don't use the gritty mix - simple. 3. Grit doesn't anchor a plant until the entire pot is filled with roots, so tall plants topple over, and hanging plants fall out. At least until the roots have filled the entire pot, you need to devise something to anchor your plants in their pots: bungee cords, tape, chicken wire, zip ties, etc. All else equal, the gritty mix provides more shear strength than peat-based mediums. So, while a recently root pruned plant potted in the gritty mix might need support, the need for supporting the same plant in soils like MG would actually be greater. Whenever we root prune or bare root, especially top-heavy plants like trees, no matter what the medium used - they should be supported. This is not an issue unique to the gritty mix by any means. 4. Special watering devices and methods are needed for some plants. Unlike soil that absorbs and spreads water, grit lets it run directly through, so you must water the entire surface of the grit, or dip the entire pot in water to wet it through. you can't water a plant from a corner, or around the edges. I have to use a laboratory squeeze bottle to water several of my plants because I need to direct a narrow stream of water between dense leaves that completely cover the surface of the pot. It's a pain, but my other choice is to submerge the pots, which means I have to carry them and a bucket of water around several times a week, which increases the risk of them being dropped or spilled. I think that if a person chooses to submerge the pots when they can envision so many potential catastrophes associated with that method, another method is probably a good idea. It is true that water quickly runs through the gritty mix, so you need to try to wet the entire surface of the soil as you water. This is also not a problem unique to the gritty mix. The gritty mix won't become hydrophobic, like peat based soils, unless you have a lot of dry algae growing on the soil surface (but then you have a larger problem), VERY often, problems arise when peat-based soils dry down to their hydrophobic stage, at which point only a tiny fraction of the water applied is absorbed, while all the rest runs down between the soil mass & pot wall. At least if you cover the entire surface of the gritty mix with water until it flows out of the drain hole, you can be pretty certain you're wetting the soil mass & not just throwing water at it. I use some very sophisticated watering tools: The tool above is a very simple water brake. You can buy one for the hose end for a couple of bucks. That's ALL you'll need to water anything in the gritty mix outdoors. I use it in combination with a hose-end shut-off that allows me to control flow volume. The sophisticated tool below is what I use to water all my indoor plants during the winter. I have 2 growing tables in the basement that are 4ft by 8 ft. I have about 100 plants packed onto the two tables, so the plants in the middle are 2 ft from the edge. I water ALL of those plants with this watering can and never once empty a drainage saucer (I use white plastic plates to catch the water that runs through, and it evaporates in a day or 2) or move a plant. I took the rose (nozzle) it came with off and slipped a nozzle from a tube of caulking over the spout. It gives me pinpoint accuracy so I can cover the entire soil surface - simple. 5. It is easy to overwater with soil, but it's even easier to underwater in grit. There is little margin for error. If a plant wilts one day, it'll likely be dead 24 hours later if it's not watered. You can't put it off to the next day. It's easy to underwater in any medium if the grower doesn't hold up his half of the bargain. Under-watering is another issue not unique to the gritty mix, and to say there is little margin for error is deceiving. Any plant that is wilting in any mix is likely to be just as dead next day in whatever medium it's in. The gritty mix does require more frequent waterings, but that doesn't mean the chance of under-watering is increased. One either waters on time or doesn't. The consequences are the same regardless of the medium used. Where fast draining soils shine is in the area that produces the most problems - OVER-watering. As already mentioned, you'd have to work hard at over-watering media like the gritty mix, while excess water retention is an inherent problem in almost all peat-based media. 6. You end up a slave to watering schedules. You can't really have a friend or neighbor water your plants when you go out of town for a week. Every plant ends up on a different schedule, and you can't just stick a finger in to see if it's damp. It's too complicated and confusing to most people. A slave? Different schedules for every plant? In summer, I make the watering rounds daily, but my situation is a little unique. I have lots of bonsai in very small soil volumes, some of which DO require watering daily. Those plants I'm growing pots the same size others might use are watered every 3-4 days, 2-3 days when it's really hot. I water almost EVERYTHING (other than bonsai) on the same schedule. In the winter, every plant except 1 large Fockea edulis and about 4 very small bonsai gets watered every 4 days. The F edulis gets watered every 8 days & the tiny bonsai every 2 days - not hard at all to keep track of. In summer, I have a number of bonsai that get watered daily. The rest of the plants get watered every 2-3 days, depending on weather. Soils that hold little to no perched water ALLOW you to water on a schedule, which is MUCH easier than trying to figure out when 200 plants in a peat mix might or might not need water - nothing complicated or confusing about it - simple. 7. Grit is extremely heavy and clumsy. A five-gallon potted tree that you might've easily moved outside during the day, and back in each night becomes a chore that needs to be set on wheels. Because the pot's depth plays into how much water it holds in relation to the soil volume, there is no way to be exactly precise in measuring the weight of the gritty mix vs a peat mix. In 1-3 gallon containers, the gritty mix weights about 2-3 times what a peat-based mixture weighs when both are dry. When both are saturated in the same size container, the gritty mix weighs about 25-33% more than the peat-based soils. I grow some pretty big plants, and don't think twice about the weight. The term clumsy to describe a soil wouldn't have crossed my mind. When spring temps are erratic and my numerous plants need to be moved in and out to avoid chill-related injury. I put them on nursery carts and move 50 plants in and out in 5 minutes - simple. 8. It wastes a lot of water (and expensive fertilizer). I have to go around dumping drip trays after every watering. In a dry climate, of if you have heat on indoors to dry the air, it might not be an issue, but we're right around 100% humidity indoors and out here. As noted, I've never dumped a drip tray - they do evaporate indoors long before the next watering is required. Outdoors, it's a non-issue for me. Again - not an issue unique to the gritty mix. If you're watering correctly and flushing the soil when you water, you have water in the collection saucer. If you don't, you're promoting salt build-up in the soil, which comes with its own set of problems. 9. Self-watering pots and devices won't work with grit. Completely true ...... by design. The gritty mix is purposely designed so it doesn't support the perched water SWCs depend on to supply water to the plant. Even the 5:1:1 mix isn't suited well to SWCs. Most growers that prefer bark-based media and the convenience of SWCs add additional peat to the 5:1:1 mix so they end up with something like a 5:3:1 mixed of bark:peat:perlite Growing is all about compromise. Growers that want the convenience of week-long intervals between waterings aren't going to get it w/o sacrificing a measure of their plants' potential. When we depend on water-filled pores between soil particles to extend watering intervals, we also accept the fact that roots occupying the saturated portion of the media are functioning very poorly and dying from a lack of oxygen. This is very expensive in terms of energy outlay, and robs the plant of energy that might have been applied to something other than regenerating lost rootage. It's up to the individual to decide what best allows them to order their priorities as they choose. Blaming failures on the mix w/o some feel for what else might have gone wrong is very unfair. Very often, we discover that in their haste to 'get the mix made', it was made with ingredients that shouldn't have been used (too large). Often, too, growers go forward with root pruning that's poorly timed and before the undertaking is well-understood before repotting into the gritty mix. When a plant is doomed before the repotting session is completed, it's hardly reasonable to blame the medium. I repeat over and over that I'm not selling recipes, I'm selling a concept and encouraging people to understand what drives the concept so they can make use of it to avoid the issues that bring 90% of the growers to this forum seeking remedial advice for problems ultimately related to poor root health. This thread is a perfect example. I extolled the virtues of fast draining soils and never mentioned a recipe or any particular soil until the topic was broached in a fashion biased enough that I felt an alternate view would be appropriate. YMMV - just trying to keep it real. Al