Al I am very happy with my Benjamina's progress. I really thought that I have taken off too many roots (photo of most of the trimmed roots below). I tried my hardest to keep as many fine roots as possible. After potting it in 5-1-1 soil mix, I kept it outside in dappled shade, religiously watered, and even talked to her...You are so right that this kind of work creates bond with your plant. Before starting, my attitude was "if tree doesn't make it, that's ok - it's old, getting too tall for my house, it's crooked and so on". Now I really want it to grow well. I am looking forward to next year when I will try to shape the top much more. Now I see that it could work, one just has to go for it. I never knew this is what you are supposed to do to help plant reach it's potential. I always had some potted plants, but thought that providing as much light as possible, watering them, ocasionally fertilizing and potting up is all you can/should do. I am really glad that I stumbled upon this forum, and found all of this information. Al has been very patient, I even called him at home on Sunday night at inapropriate time. I have bookmarked all Al's posts, and return to reading them often. One of the reasons I didn't give up after seeing the root ball first time was that I felt I took too much of Al's private time for not at least trying. I am happy that I did. My plan for this tree is to shape the canopy more next year, and then do more root prunning year after (2014) - the root ball is still large (but probably 60% smaller than original). There is great satisfaction in completing this new -for me- task and seeing the results. And I think the tree is happier too... Henrik, forgive me for posting so extensively in your thread, but I hope that my experience will somehow help - from the newbies point of view. Most of the pruned-off roots: Rina

Under the new deck - as you prepare the area, establish good basic drainage. There are a lot of ways to do that, but the easiest is with the final grade. Using a geomembrane/weedblock fabric is a sound idea. If it is well covered (the deck will do a lot of that) then a good quality membrane should last a decade or more. The cover over the membrane should be something that won't give new weed seeds that will find there way into that zone a foothold for germination. Rather than sand, I would suggest stone or gravel for that reason. The new raised bed -- the soil you are going to move is full of natural weed seeds. Practically, there isn't much you can do about that. It will continue to support germination whenever the conditions are right. As a bed it will also get new seeds from the surrounding environment. Once the bed is built, then a good mulch layer of 2-3 inches will help minimize new weed germination. But like all exposed beds, there will be weeds. For moving the soil to the new raised bed, you can just dig up the old, turn it over and put it in the new bed. Covering it with newspaper or a good mulch will prevent new germination, but when that cover is removed for planting then you face the same old problem. A different strategy, but more work, is to turn over or till the soil after it's in the new bed location, leave it exposed and then cultivate every week or two to disrupt newly germinated seedlings. The object here is to deplete the included weeds seeds by encouraging germination, then destroy the seedlings by cultivation, over and over again, until it's planted, then mulch.

-I'm thinking about lining the baskets with black landscape fabric. My thought is that the black material will absorb the sun and heat things up a bit more while still allowing it to breathe. Thoughts? Is this a waste of time or does it have some value? > It may help a little, but the effect will be small compared to achieving the most balanced green/brown mix, keeping moisture right and turning. You could try it on a couple of bins with a couple control bins with the same contents and see for yourself. *Herbs - I have a LOT of mint, mustard seed, chives, etc. I've read NOT to compost herbs because they are so proliferate. Anything with seeds on the plant when you put it in, may sprout later. Mint spreads through roots, and root fragments may survive. You can lay them out in the sun till they're dead, or hot compost them. *Wild Grape Vine - Can this be composted or will I just be setting it up to reproduce? I haven't tried this, but I don't think grape vine will root that easily. *Mulch - I have a free endless supply of mulch readily available. Should I add mulch to the piles? How would or wouldn't that be helpful? What kind of mulch? Shredded limbs? You can use it, and if it has a lot of green twiggy ends (ramial wood) it has more N. Woody shreds are low in N and will take some time to decompose, but if you have no other browns, they will work. *Peppers, Tomatoes, other stuff from the garden - Will this stuff decompose or will it seed and sprout new plants? Pepper seeds, in this part of the country, do not survive winter. Tomatoes will. They will survive the human intestinal tract AND the sewage plant and sprout out of places where sludge or sludge compost is used. They are easy to pull up though. However, I don't compost my tomato plants to avoid spreading blight. I let the city compost pile have them. Weeds/Nightshade/MorningGlory - Again, will this stuff decompose or am I just giving it a breading ground? Again, avoid seeds, and with root spreaders like Bermuda grass, avoid them or make sure they are good and dead. Pine Needles - ? Slow to decompose due to the waxy outer skin, but compostable.

To give you some encouragement, I was fairly successful DESPITE my methods. I didn't even use a seed tray! I usually buy peppers every single year from the farmer's market. I saved some seed, thinking I will give it a shot in the spring 'just for fun'. I totally forgot about the seeds until around March, and then proceeded to start 50 seeds in a single dixie cup sitting on top of my fridge, assuming that 'if I am lucky, I will get 1 or two to sprout up". Well, I got basically all 50 shooting up. I was busy, and didn't even move them into individual cups until they were already a month old and strangling one another. I used no lights - just my south facing windowsill - and I stacked my cups on top of one another like a pyramid to try and maximize how many I could fit. They toppled down twice, but I just put them back up. By the time the last frost hit, most of them were flowering. I moved them outside in what I thought would be a great spot to harden them off (started researching by this time!) and I severely damaged half of them in one day. Anyways, by the time September came (I get frost in September) I picked 2 grocery bags full of peppers. I can't imagine doing things more wrong. It was about as 'ghetto' and low-tech as you can get. I still don't use a heat mat - I don't even use seed starting trays. I just use empty styrofoam egg containers with a bit of soil in each cell, and I set that on top of my fridge (haven't taken a temperature reading) and I got about 90% germination. Anything you have - a computer, DVD player, etc., - that puts out a bit of heat you can use. You CAN get it to sprout even without heat, but the germination rates will be lower, and they will take longer to sprout. I use lights now, simply because I am growing way more varieties this year, but still have a few that I couldn't fit under the lights sitting on my windowsill. I can definitely see the advantage of lights now, but I am still expecting to be picking some nice peppers at the end of the season even from the ones sitting on the windowsill (after the frost and I get them in-ground, that is). So, don't worry. Your germination and growth rates may not be optimal, but you will experience some success. Besides, this way is the 'green way', right? :D Good luck!!