bcskye, Yes, you can tap hickories - and walnuts, too for that matter; there was an article published in the Proceedings of the Northern Nut Growers Assn annual meeting several years back, where they'd done just that - and the black walnut syrup came out pretty well-received in taste tests(IIRC, it beat out maple syrup). The only potential drawback I can see for you is that weather conditions in your area may not foster the sort of 'sap run' that folks farther north of you get(or, I may be totally wrong in this theory.). I'll hazard a guess that the shagbark hickory syrup you're seeing is made by boiling strips of bark peeled off the trees, straining that liquor, adding sugar, and boiling it down further. It's a well-known(well, at least in the nutgrowers circle I run in) procedure - and I've made hickory syrup in that manner, using shagbark/shellbark nut fragments left over after cracking and picking, whole cracked mockernut hickory nuts, and nice clean mockernut husks. I just couldn't get past the thought of all the lichens, bug frass, and poison ivy rootlets that might be present on strips of exfoliating shagbark bark and what off-flavors they might impart.

My ming aralia often smells really mapley. It's not even particularly stressed. Not in great soil and sometimes I let it dry down a little too much (gets a little wilty. It dropped a few lower leaves once) but it's definitely not severely stressed. Now, when I GOT the plant years ago, and didn't know how plants worked, I overwatered it and nearly killed it. THAT made it smell VERY mapley. So I'm thinking maybe a slight maple smell is normal, and if it's stressed it gets a lot more pronounced? Also, as far as I can tell, my delonix regia is also giving off a mapley smell. I'm not sure if that's stressed or not. Apparently, if you grow them as a houseplant, they typically do lose all of their leave sin the winter. It's leafing up again, so who knows.

I don't know either, but rot doesn't travel top down from what I've ever seen. I haven't grown Fabian but have had other Aralias, they did well on pebble trays, but their watering can be tricky; also they need fast draining mix. I'd suggest any soft mushy plant tissue is rot & should be cut immediately; it won't recover & it's likely to spread (sorry to be a downer, but you did ask). What I'm going to say next is severe, but really the only way to learn what's going on w/ the plant. I'd unpot it just to take a look, just turn it out upside down over newspaper. You can smell if the're rot involved, whether there's root loss involved & maybe whether it's worth saving. Mind you, I've never done this w/ a plant taller than 1 ft., but really that's the only way to know.

Hello L. Hathaway. You may not get a response from Kristy. If you click on her name you'll see that she hasn't been active on this forum for quite some time. Someone else may respond, but you're likely to get better results if you start a new thread rather than reviving an old one and posting a comment. Some people ignore old threads. Just a suggestion. Good luck.