Thank you Michael. I did find the rose slugs - and they have had a feast. I did take a few photos of the wilted canes - posted on the link below. The stems do not seem to be hollow. Still think it is Stem Sawfly pls? I am going to prune below the wilt and hope that takes care of it. A different rose has gotten a fuzzy white something on it - last photo linked. No wilt so I guess this is something else. It is close to an azalea that I just found has leaf gall. Any idea what this is pls? Here is a link that might be useful: New growth wilting

Hi najoba, Burlap beats nothing, for sure, but a mulch would be better, and a cover crop of winter rye even better than that. A bed on hold all winter will leach out available mitrogen with the rains, and burlap won't stop that or prevent some erosion of fine particles. A cover crop holds on to those nutrients for you, while sending an immense web of roots to stabilize the soil. Rye grass would be a pesky weed, I'm talking cereal grain rye. I say winter rye for a daylily bed because the root system suppresses nematodes and weeds. Daylilies (per Gary recently) like soil with three times the usual amount of fungi. We were discussing compost specifically, where cereal grain waste of any kind would feed the fungi. In my own head, it seems like a a cereal grain crop would provide some ungerminated seed to feed the soil fungi over winter. In spring, when you terminate the cover crop by whatever method, the roots decay leaving organic matter, worm food, and macropores in the soil for improved aeration and water penetration. I guess farmer's kill it off with Roundup and leave the plants there for a mulch, but for something less that 2000 acres of cotton you could just mow it down a few weeks before planting. We all talk about newspaper mulch, but I got rolls of brown paper from Lowe's paint department, 4' X 54' It's thick paper for protecting wooden floors from paint. I plan to set down that paper and have my son kick it along for it's 54 feet of mulch base over my mown cover. This is my seedling bed I'm doing, and in a big back yard with property addition up to a small pond in a subdivision so I went with easy, but also I think the brown solid paper won't blow during it's layout , and will look nicer for my neighbors. I don't plan to till anymore in the spring, just mulch. I know you have much bigger beds/operation than me, but I was happy to see you here and wanted to share my plans as I also have some slope on this bed heading down to a small stream. It's more work now, but pays off later.

I would let the seedlings develop a set of leaves before moving it into its own pot. If you got a lot of seeds try leaving some in your experiment GH Env., and see how much it grows before stopping. I usually just place seeds in a ziploc bag with peat moss but do notice that when its kept too long in the pure moss, the roots seem to have problems. Sugar Apples, container grown, at least three years before any signs of flowering. Good thing is that its possible to flower and fruit a seedling in containers compared to other Annonas.

My 5cents... 1. pot is too large, too deep 2. soil needs some 'lightening-up'; add generous amount of perlite if you can't get anything else (I use small grit a lot); research soils for succulents on this forum. If you see recommendation to add sand anywhere, I would say DON't, unless it is really gritty (larger particles) 3. rocks on the bottom/halfway up don't work, get rid of them. Get shallower pot AND well draining mix instead. 4. just because 'nothing is hanging' (sorry ez to contradict you), doesn't mean plant is healthy. You need to squeeze (gently) trunk and branches to see if they are too soft - but sometimes they are soft just from lack of water. I do not think that is the case with your plant - it started to rot for a reason. Water was, probably, getting poured (sometimes we don't notice) over same spot on trunk, perhaps there was a small injury that allowed water to get in - anything is possible. I would gently swish the root ball in the water, cut off roots that are mushy-slimy. Any black spots/areas in the trunk or branches you see on cut pieces are sign of rot spreading. Unless you get rid of them, it will continue to spread. Small and healthy piece is better - and will grow in proper conditions - than larger-longer sick one that will eventually die anyway. It is clear to me from the last photo that the branch is growing from the trunk/stump, so you can leave it. Not 100% sure, but 4th photo from the bottom seems to show some darker areas - double check on that. If yes, cut further. When you pot it up, don't bury trunk too deep, as long as the roots are covered, that is enough. You could put the rocks (ones you had on the bottom of the pot for 'drainage') on top of the soil around the plant to support it - how large are these rocks?