Hi & welcome to GardenWeb! Your Sans do look like they've had a struggle. How long have they been planted outside? The older leaves may have gotten a bit of frostbite, or the plants may be just discarding them in adjustment to the disturbance. If the new leaves are staying the proper color, they are probably happy there. Sans are definitely sensitive to frost, which will make the leaves mushy as you've described. Those leaves can't heal, if you'd like to remove them by gently tugging them sideways or cutting at soil level. If you rinse the roots when you dig them back up, no worries about critters. Place in fresh potting mix as you would for a regular repot. But I wouldn't do it in a cold, wet day at the very last minute. Better to do on a warm (not hot) day when the plants are more dry if at all possible, as is a general rule for repotting. The 2 sure ways to kill this nearly un-killable plant are too much water, too cold. Both plants need well-draining conditions, will not abide soggy, cold roots. Concerned about the soil in the Kalanchoe's pot, and if the pot has a drain hole. Looks happy today though! Were the Sans in the same soil while inside for winter? Next time you're planting something, especially ornamental, consider clumps instead of rows, although that's just an unsolicited opinion I couldn't keep to myself. If you'd like to continue discussing your plants in greater detail, I might recommend the Sans forum, Cacti & succulents, and/or house plants forums. You've been doing an amazing job considering you didn't know what they were! Impressive.

using the GW system for pix.. one pic per post ... is all that is allowed ... if you want to get fancy... you need something like flikr or photobucket ... IMHO ... your first lesson as a newb ... is to learn about the mulch.. and learn to maintain it so as to keep weeds at bay ... if you did nothing else this season ... just mulch ... and second.. they are not children.. you wont need to ever feed anything.. key word being NEED ... a little of this or that wont hurt.. but dont get it in your head.. they will die w/o food.. besides .. note that with a properly applied mulch.. one of its functions.. as it breaks down.. is to build the soil .. which ... is really all a plant needs.. a good soil ... the first is a shrub.. i may see you in that forum .. the second is a perennial ... i might see you in that forum ... good luck and welcome to GW ken ps: learning how to water ... would be the next best thing.. to learn this season ... and it has nothing to do with wetting down the leaves every evening.. after dinner ... and it is rarely an automated system.. for anything other than the lawn ...

I posted a link to a photo of Iris virginica in the other post, but just to show that is it hard to tell some iris seed apart, I took a pic with a couple iris that have similar seeds. It would be impossible to tell Iris virginica var. shrevei and Iris brevicaulis apart by seeds alone. They both stack together in the pod and are the same shade of brown. Good one Flora! : ) Remy

HA! That's pretty funny, mnktx. I went to a concert last night and ever since, "76 trombones in the big parade" has played in my head OVER and OVER, so they did it for you in advance. :-) If you're really interested in stuff like that (wasp eggs on caterpillars), you can follow the link below. Some folks at North Carolina State University's department of Entomology developed "a freaky tag-team of bugs" to eat kudzu, the vine that ate the South. Where I used to live, I watched a car parked at a garage get covered in kudzu in a matter of a couple weeks--it's beautiful, but it's the most aggressive plant I've ever seen. They didn't want the caterpillar to go nuts eating everything else, though, so they infected their caterpillars with an organic time bomb--wasp larvae in their backs which would eat them from the inside out. Poor caterpillars! Here is a link that might be useful: Freakish Bug Tag Team Article