I have no idea about the pics, though blog.com has a reputation for a lot of down-time. Thanks for letting me know! If you click again another time, hopefully it will work better. Hard to complain much about a free thingie, so I won't. Sorry it frustrated you! The pics here are of a diff plant, but the very same principle. " I am wondering if there's a way to have loose airy soil that that also have enough nutrients without frequent fertilizing." Generally yes, a bigger pot/more volume of soil mix. I would forego the styro & compost. The styro will just cause you to need to water (and repot) more often. Fertilizer is much more efficient at delivering nutrients in a pot which is not a large enough environment for the natural decomposition process to appropriately sustain/fortify plants. Also, as decomposition happens, the result is tiny, water-logged, airless particles (mud.) More about soil/watering. A Dracaena grows so slowly, an occasional dose of weak fertilizer should be more than enough even in the leanest (nutritionally) mix. The mix you described, or any with 30% compost would be too dense for my confidence. The goal of a coarser, grittier mix is to eliminate tiny particles of any type, peat, sand, clay, silt. Think moist particles that have some tiny air spaces between them so there is also oxygen, even when saturated to capacity. It's going way beyond my area of experience to give you a specific recipe since I break the rules I espouse but there are a glut of discussion here about this. I would follow the advice established in those. It gets perpetuated because it works well for so many people/plants. There is a pic of such a mix here, in post dated Wed, Oct 20, 10 at 9:45.

Dan, I don't think the authors are recommending doing away with container-grown stock. I think they are saying that bare-rooting, as part of the planting process and done by people trained in doing it, has advantages (and disadvantages). They are going through the process to correct root problems caused by traditional growing methods, not to prevent the problems from occurring to start with. Also, I think most of the research and debate is concentrated on larger stock (mostly B&B), rather than smaller, containerized stock. The guy that brought this article back to my attention claims to be a totally supporter of bare-rooting smaller stuff, but has concerns about calls for doing it across the board for different species, to larger B&B material, and by the nursery industry with untrained labor.

As long as you keep the lamp far enough away, it will not dry out the canes. I saved 3 bushes with it, just raising their temperature for four days each. Put your hand on the rose; if you feel warm but not uncomfortable, so will the rose. The plastic might work, but I didn't use it. How about the plastic with a bowl of water to raise humidity? Anyway, I clipped the heat lamp to a milk carton, posed it at least a foot away from the bush. They are doing quite nicely, one of the three former sticks will break color this week. I lamped them about a month ago, when July showed no signs of heating. I did not harden, as I live in a mild, 60's climate. Beth

I agree with Sheila - most of us use the opportunity of planting a rose to do some spot enhancing of the organic material in our soil. I agree that top dressing with organic material is the best long-term solution to improving the soil, but as a short term boost for the soil mixing in compost or something else organic has been very effective for me. I contrast beds where I have been planting roses this way for some time, and the soil in the entire bed becomes this lovely textured and rich soil that I can dig in with my fingers, while beds that I only top-dress haven't worked in that organic material very deeply yet even though they've all been planted the same amount of time. Having said that, you don't have to amend with anything if you start out with good loamy soil like you describe, so there's no particular need to do as much as you've done or certainly to add anything more. For me, the second set of additives is a bit more effort than I want to put in but it sounds fine being all organic and slow acting. The one thing you don't want to do in any new planting is add fast acting fertilizers which for me include most granular fertilizers. Biotone and other organic fertilizers break down more slowly and don't run the risk of burning sensitive feeder roots. I simplify your latter list and add just manure, alfalfa hay, and something to lighten the soil that I can buy in large bulk and relatively cheaply (lately it has been cotton burr compost). My preference is to add no more than 1/3 other substance to the existing soil, since you want the rose to get used to the conditions it's going to expect from here on out rather than getting hooked on any particular amendments at the outset. You've obviously been successful with 1/2 supplements so go with what works for you. I always soak bare roots and you'll find a majority of us do the same, and a majority of the vendors specifically recommend soaking the roots. The principle is to make sure the rose is adequately hydrated to handle the transition to the ground. One look at dried out husks of body bag roses indicates how important hydration is for bare root roses. Cynthia