When a plant loses its leaves, its demand for water decreases markedly, making over-watering a potential problem if the grower doesn't recognize that a lighter hand on the watering can is going to be required until the plant gets its happy look back. Tiff's suggestion about the dunks is a good one, but the gnats are more a symptom of the underlying over-watering problem than a direct threat to your plant. IOW, get the watering under control and the gnats should go away. When you use the words 'slimy' and 'soil' in the same sentence, warning flags go up. How appropriate light levels are and your soil choice probably have more influence on how successful your growing experience is than any other factors. It's essential to be able to maintain a happy root system if there is to be hope for a healthy plant. On that point, there should be no debate. I'll leave you with a link to a thread that offers ways to avoid all the problems growers most commonly come here seeking a remedy for. I hope it helps you, and leaves you with a sense of how important soil choice is to your ability to maintain plants consistently in good vitality. Al Here is a link that might be useful: Click me to go to follow the link ....

I was just reading about a similar kind of problem over on the hosta forum, since hostas tend to be planted around trees. Seems the maple tree roots spread out everywhere and become ensnared in the hosta roots and end up strangling them, as it were. It occurred to me that it was a good thing that I had never tried to grow roses in my front yard which has a number of maple trees. A similar problem could happen with maples and roses. I mention this only for some of you in the midwest to check if you grow maples in your yards. Might produce problems like aptosca described above. Congratulation aptosca on finding cause and working so hard to "rescue" your roses. Your pics are lovely! Kate

It's pretty common for mice to girdle a tree like that, and it's usually a death sentence. If you catch the damage right away you can sometimes save the tree by making bridge grafts, but they don't always work, and it sounds like this tree is past the stage where you could try that anyway. If there is no sign of buds swelling by now, then your tree is dead. The next time you plant a tree you should wrap the base in chicken wire to prevent the mice (or whatever) from destroying it again. Also, keep mulch away from the trunk - several inches of cleared ground is usually enough to discourage mice from going after the bark. Is it possible that the tree was girdled last summer, when you noticed the leaves dying and that you only noticed the bark damage now? If that's the case, then there's no hope in heck of saving the tree - it's long dead :-( BP

I ordered one from either Stark Bros or Henry Field and that one made it through the winter. I forget the variety. The dead one was abused and had figs in other years that seemed to get ripe very late. It is Brown Turkey. It was in a pot and very neglected not fertilized not repotted. For several years I lugged it in my hall for the winter. I didn't think the few figs tasted very good. I put it in the ground last year after I saw figs outside at Powell Garden near Kansas City. Theirs were planted outside the greenhouse so may have been getting some heat from that. I think I did protect them with chopped leaves.