High Nick..Ficus are plants that don't like change..Though Ficus elastica (Rubber trees) aren't as picky as their cousins, Benji's, a decrease of light can cause leaf drop. BTW, do you have a green or variegated plant? Variegated need more light than green. When I grew my variegated rubber tree in a shady south window, it didn't put out much growth, the few leaves that grew were small and colors faded.. Variegated or not, I'd keep the plant in the brightest spot possible, especially since winter's on its way. An east window doesn't put out all that much light, so I imagine the artificial light was a big help. Is there a reason you want to set in lower light? Toni

Zack-- if you have fairly uniform, deep soil that is not sandy, water moves up from the deeper zones by capillary attraction to replace water being taken from the upper zone by the roots. In clay soil, this process could likely produce a better balance of air and water in the topsoil than too-frequent lighter watering. Roses use the same amount of water regardless of soil type. But in lighter soils or shallow soils it may be better to give this amount in more frequent, lighter doses. In clay or muck soils that drain slowly, heavier weekly watering might work better. But roses do take most of their water from the topsoil, moreso than typical plants, according to the limited research that has been done.

Fall planting is recommended because when the winter stem buds are set these send hormones to the root tips that make them elongate all in one big flush - the most for the whole year, because the rest of the time something is going on to make conditions less favorable for root growth. In winter the plant is basically hibernating, the roots the least active for the whole year. In spring new roots grow but so does the top, so the energy has to be shared. In summer there is some root growth but not nearly what there is in fall. To capture the full benefit of the fall root push you have to get the plant in the new planting site before the stem buds have matured. And most of the root tips need to be intact, if a specimen is planted with the roots having been cut to correct circling and other deformities it won't react to this much if at all until the stem buds open in spring.

Hmm. The temps mentioned don't help much. A typical summer day here will get into the mid 70's. 50 is a common night time temp. Sometimes we get a 'heat wave' where the temps get into the upper 80's for a week, and there is a run on fans at the the box stores. Comparisons: We traditionally put out bedding plants on the May long weekend which in Canada is the third Sunday in May. This year we had killing frosts until June. We have had snow in August, but that is a fluke. But 2 inches of non-sticking snow in September happens every few years. The poplar change colour typically in mid September. And 15 September is the average panic-day-the-garden-is-going-to-freeze. HOWEVER, going through my photo library. 2004: 4" of snow on the ground by 22 October. 2008: Leaves starting to change by 10 September, then we had a very long Indian summer. I was watering until November, it got very cold for a week, then I had to fire up the irrigation system one more time in December. On the average first snowfall that sticks is early November. Typically the pond freezes over a couple weeks later than that. But we have had -10F temperatures for Halloween. Generally all our conifers are finished with active growth by early August. Needles may get fuller, but they won't grow. To Ken: The trees I want to move are 4-6 feet tall. I moved about 150 this spring, selling most of them and planting the ones where the root ball fell apart on my own farm. Of those 15, 13 survived and are nicely green, although as I expected they didn't grow much. (Busy putting out roots.) My followups on the ones I sold say that they have done well. (I offer replacement if any fail.) I dig by hand. A 4' tree gets a 16" root disk. About 30-40 lbs. A 6' tree gets a 20" disk -- about 80 lbs. (Spruce don't seem to have roots deeper than about 4-5 inches.) My rule for spring is that I can start digging when the ground thaws, and I stop when the buds are beginning to swell, and that they should be in the ground in their new home by the time the papers start to fall off the tips. I'm trying to come up with a set of guidelines for fall. At this point my best guess for balance is to start digging after the first killing frost, and to have them in the ground by the 2nd weekend in October. That will typically give them 3-4 weeks of warm days (60's) cool nights (30's) Ground, especially if I mulch, won't freeze until November. Follow that up with a liberal application of snow with the snowblower?