The potting soil pH may be too high. That's assuming they don't have some sort of disease. They like a fairly acidic soil, and most potting soil is pH adjusted to something close to neutral. Years ago, there used to exist something called azalea soil. I haven't seen it in 15 years, but that doesn't mean it's not still out there. Something like that is what you want. Older houseplant books may have recipes for acidic potting soil. It's going to be mostly peat, with something else mixed in to improve the texture and no lime.

I planted mine in the center of an island bed where the shade from the dogwoods seemed to prevent anything else from doing well. Plus I wanted a groundcover in there so I wouldn't have to crawl in on my hands and knees to mulch. They stayed pretty contained in that area until I was forced to severely cut back the dogwoods, which allowed a lot more light into the center of the bed. This spring I noticed that they were spreading much more aggressively and I had to dig out quite a bit that was not where I wanted it. They had been planted in this area for probably 8-10 years and this was the first time I had ever had to take any action to contain them. I'll see what they do this year and if they get too wild I guess I'll have to take them out and find a more sun tolerant, but better behaved groundcover. Totally Confused

Have I delayed lily-of-the-valley planting too long? Newby here. The silver maple in my front yard was planted much too close to my house in an area about 25' square. It's bounded on one side by my house and three sides by cement. The grass is fighting a losing battle against the tree, what with the roots heaving up the soil, so I thought lotv might make it a good companion (or adversary). (The tree seems to have spared the house, which was built in 1957, its foundation still intact.) I'm making a raised bed 7" high out of the 25' square and will fill it with þ HD âÂÂtopsoilâ (dirt) and ü HD humus/manure. It will drain. The problem is that building the supports for the raised bed is taking 5x longer than I thought it would, and those pips have been sitting in the service sink in the basement for a week. I've kept them perfectly evenly moist in well punctured baggies �" never soggy or saturated. The roots feel like they've been starched and smell like clean earth. No rot or mold at all. BUT...some of the tips (of the pips?) are kind of reddish brown, and some are green. I think they were paler when they arrived. So what's with that color? Are the pips dying? Have they passed the point of no return? Should I forget about them and get fresh ones? Or are they okay? And what do you think of my soil formula? I'm going to plant them tomorrow or the next day, at the latest. Thanks very much for your thoughts. Bernard-in-Ohio

What I did for that was make a cone out of paper, put it over the thing, and spray into that. I know you can use cardboard shields too. ==>> until they start dripping ... how about transferring the RU to a windex type bottle.. for more precise application .. hardware store quart utility bottle.. with tip adjustment is great... go for large drops that gravity pulls down.. rather than creating a vapor that drifts .... i also use RU in the applicator at the link ... if you just drip a line down a leaf it will work.. i actually use this with undiluted RU generic .... for stump killing .. anyway ... just attack.. come back in 2 or 3 weeks.. reapply .. do it again in a few weeks .. etc ... be persistent ... ken https://www.google.com/search?q=plochmans+mustard&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=XQTcUYCCC_OFyQGCg4DAAg&biw=1154&bih=805&sei=XwTcUbmZHZK4yAHD0oDYDw