Hmmm, not much positive reception here. I notice a lot of you are talking about perennial weeds. I agree, they're no fun. I have all Lori's weeds and they're just as obnoxious here as they are in her garden, except for the violets, which are so glorious I forgive them for being invasive. I rather like dandelions: the flowers smell sweet--I had to read this in a book on herbs to know it--and the greens are edible and tasty. Besides, dandelions have personality and are almost pretty enough to serve as ornamentals. I'd feel deprived if I had no dandelions. But I leave them in the rough parts of the garden, not in the more civilized areas. Some of my annual weeds are ugly, and I do pull them. I get pretty tired of chickweed, and there's a really ugly large weed coming up now, with a taproot, that I kill whenever I can. And we have our lovely thistles, and a plant with terrible sticky seeds that are almost impossible to get off clothes, and so on. But I get a lot of pleasure out of the many delicate and graceful plants that seed themselves around the garden every year and grow with no intervention on my part at all. You Californians have a different climate than we do here, and your native flora is considerably different. I don't know what the promise of your wild plants would be. My reading and observation tell me that weeds don't just 'happen'. A lot of them grow in disturbed ground, for example; and many of them are thrifty and have a competitive edge in poor or degraded conditions. Where we've had slides, for example, the first year the bare ground is covered with weeds; the next year grass comes, and after a couple more years have passed, pioneer shrubs and some really tough trees can start to work their way in. Herbaceous weeds love sun, as a rule, so growing shrubs and trees discourages them (though they give a hand to those plagues wild clematis and elm). Knowing these things I can help create conditions that favor the plants I want to grow. Dang, Kaylah, that sounds rough, both weather and knee--my knees are shaky too. I don't envy you your weather, though here at the moment we could use a bit of chill and rain. This year it seems as though when March ended we skipped April and passed straight on to May. It's warm, and hasn't rained for a couple weeks; and there's no rain in the forecast for another ten days. The ground is already cracking. Melissa

Terrene - There is a milkweed bug (do an internet image search) that will literally shave the blooms. Aphids can be an issue. I've not had Goldfinch take those seeds, but they always break stems and blooms to eat seeds from verbena bonariensis and susans. My milkweed is right beside the where the deer sleep every night and they've never touched any milkweed. Sometimes a fawn will taste something and spit it out! Rouge - asclepias tuberosa is difficult to move unless it's very young. Long taproot on older plants! You might consider collecting seeds (when you see silky threads in the burst pods with dried seeds). The seeds need cold stratification, so I sow them when the seeds would naturally drop from the plant. Mark the spot where you sow the seeds. Cameron

I'm going to break out the Roundup here shortly for a large problem area behind the garage, but tried the boiling water in front last night. It seems to work. How well, I'll know in a week or so. This one huge dandelion growing in a crack for 3 years now was bugging me; I couldn't get down to the large taproot to pull it out. It is lying flat and limp today but may have left enough root to grow back, also some horrid clover we missed when we used weed 'n feed on the lawn. Other assorted weeds where I could pour the water and not get any on my good plants. I didn't have anything proper by way of metal and was afraid to put it in my plastic sprinkling can(s). Cost of energy to boil water vs. vinegar. I may try the vinegar, and it's cheap, but don't want to bother with it if this other works. Rather than use Roundup and glove though which I've been putting off, maybe the vinegar would be just the ticket for that stuff mixed in the garden areas, no the Roundup I will get more the first try. Still, I'd have to be really careful with it as the weeds are crowded in among my expensive plants, best to just pull those if I can. Thank you for the ideas here though. Never would have thought of boiling water, and it's quick and easy for some spots. Couldn't remember where I put away my teakettle I don't use, finally remembered. I don't dare try to carry too much in one pass or I'm likely to burn myself.

Question 1 - I was really blown away by how deep and big the taproot is growing on these trees. It's like most of the energy is going to create this big root. It's thicker than the trunks in every case, and the roots are easily twice to sometimes 3x as long as the seedling itself. So on on of them, I cut back the taproot a little bit... I took about a half an inch. I had read Al mentioning that slowly cutting back a taproot over time can help spur the tree to grow more roots higher up. I hope I didn't take it out of context. The first day the lowest leaf of that seedling, which has started to go brown on the rim, became pale and collapsed on one side of the leaf. Then yesterday it went dry. Today there has been no further progress of the leaf's collapse and no further signs of stress. The seedling seems strong... Was I wrong to try and trim it back just a little bit? Or did I do alright? Is this seedling out of the woods for now do you think? Young plants are nearly all dynamic mass, and as such, have a very strong "will to live". If your plant is currently doing well, there is no reason it will take a turn unless something cultural forces a change in course. Bonsai practitioners have learned that lifting seedlings as soon as the first set of true leaves emerge and removing the seed radicle immediately below the root to shoot transition zone and treating the top as a cutting eliminated taproot issues entirely in most plants. In stubborn plants with a hard tendency toward vertical roots, you'll need to regularly remove all first order roots (attached to main stem) growing downward from the root to shoot transition zone as well as all second order roots growing up or down off the first order roots. Question 2 - related to question 1, regarding the other seedling I root pruned a little. This one I took a little more off of because of root rot. I know I had to take it off, and I also took off a bit of taproot for this one too. The seedling itself seems fine. The uppermost leaf - which is fairly new and thin yet - went limp the first day, but has become stronger and greener these last two days. I know I had to take off the bad roots, but I was worried I went too far. I'm hoping I'm seeing indications that I didn't? Only way to tell is by putting a waiting period behind you during which the plant retains its turgidity throughout the daylight hours. Stomata close at night and slow water loss, so unhealthy plants have opportunity to recover from low internal water pressure and wilting. No wilt during the day is a good indication to bet on full recovery. Question 3 - When I was done, I investigated the 5 'dead' seedlings. Two of them looked like some of Al's bare-root pictures. The main part of the taproot was healthy, seemed alive, and had small alive roots still growing from it. but the end of the root was truncated in mush, much of which fell off into the soil. I washed them as clean as I could in a mist spray and cut off the mushy end to clean root. Then I potted those in 5:1:1 too. I'm hoping against hope that I might be able to save them. The top id dead back to the twiggy stump... Any thoughts if they might come back? Anything special I might do for them to give them the best shot - for instance a special fertilizer or watering strategy? Withhold fertilizer until the plant recovers. DAMP or MOIST are the operative words. If the fungal infection has gummed up the plumbing such that a vascular connection between roots and shoots isn't in the offing, it's a goner. If the infection isn't systemic, the possibility of retaining viability is still on the table. What kills cuttings is the inability to make that plumbing connection due to rot, or the cutting having an inadequate energy reserve. If the plant/cutting/seedling runs out of reserve energy while it still a net user of energy instead of a net producer of energy, it's over. 4: I have 5 I have not yet repotted. They seem to be okay... though 3 aren't doing much of anything, they're just existing and may have some first sign of browning on lowest leaves, but I might be looking too hard too... One is finishing it's fall flush of leaves, and one is start starting it's fall flush... I'm not sure if I should repot them so close to winter or if I should let them be until spring, since they seem okay right now. I especially am not sure I should mess with the one putting out new leaves. But on the other hand, what if I really am seeing some warning signs and some suddenly start taking a down turn in the next week or month? Wouldn't it be better to do it early, now, rather than later? The only reason I re-potted the ones I did was because I was sure they wouldn't make it through winter... I am not sure on these ones. If they were your plants, what would you do? A dearth of mobile nutrients, over-watering, root congestion, soil compaction, can all lead to loss of lower leaves. I'll ask you to spare me from having to do the research by telling me if these plants would normally enter a predictive dormancy during the fall to winter transition? If yes, then waiot until spring but guard against over-watering. If no, repot only if you suspect strongly that the plants will no longer be viable come late spring (June). 5: Fungus gnats. =( I manage to get rid of them for a while, but they always come back. Of course, I was always using compost mixes, particularly organic ones, and they're usually lousy with them no matter how much a brand claims they pasteurize/sterilize for pests. Do non-mineral soil media mixes have the same ability to attract and support these and other soil-borne pests? If yes, which ones to watch for? If you don't already have a good understanding of what constitutes the comparative degrees of container media (as in unusable, practically unusable, just plain poor, ok, better, and the variations of better from 'sort of better' to 'really a whole lot better'), making that a priority will almost certainly propel your advancement farther/faster than anything else you might apply yourself to in the near term. If you need the info that can tie soils up into a neat little conceptualization, I'll be really glad to help, but I think trying to do it in a thread that covers so many topics isn't the best format. Are you familiar with and understand the concept discussed here? Which brings my follow-up: If it can support pests that spent part or all of their life cycle in soil, then it should be able to support their predators too, right? I prefer to combat pests with their predators, like nematodes, predatory mites, aphid lions, etc. Would this be doable if needed? How about we work toward providing a home for roots that doesn't provide creature comforts? In the immediate, mosquito dunks and a restrained hand on the watering can are potential remedies. 6: For the future of these little babies of mine, what would a good strategy be for keeping them happy growing in a container? You'll find an outline here that will provide a plan for maintaining woody material in containers and in good health indefinitely. I know I need to keep them smaller than if they were in the landscape, and that means eventually removing the taproot. I also understand that taproot removal usually starts after a year. But these trees don't actually seem to have much besides taproot... smaller roots branch off of it, and a few have some smaller roots that come from the trunk matrix but not most from what I've seen. Would the best bet be to gradually prune the tap root back over a few years in an attempt to get the trees to put out more roots higher up? Or should I go for broke and just cut it way back and defoliate? Or is it possible that the poor media I have been growing in so far as not encouraged growth at the higher and mid root range and drove the roots downwards looking for air? I'm sorry I haven't taken any pictures to share to give you a better idea. If I end up re-potting any of the others, I will take some. I think I covered these questions above, but if not, ask again. Al