Nat Gardner, I think Softmentor means simply that some trees will hold their fruit for a number of months after it is ripened before it will naturally fall off. For example, a juice orange might have set fruit on blossoms that opened in March of 2007, and those fruit might have ripened in December of 2007, and yet they might very well linger on the tree into May of 2008 if you don't pick them. Despite this, the tree will still flower again in March of 2008, give or take a couple or three weeks, depending on the seasonal conditions. Others will correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think you are really stressing the tree that much if you leave part of the previous year's crop on the tree after it starts to flower and set new fruit. The old fruit, already ripe, are probably not drawing that much out of the tree as far as nutrients are concerned. Of course, eventually the old season's fruit will either fall off, or you will pick it and notice it is past its peak. One thing to remember is that ripe fruit on the tree will possibly raise the risks of insect pests and disease, since things like fruit flies will find the ripe fruit, and fungal diseases will potentially also show up. Don

Stormy, first, take a few deep breaths please! First off, there simply is no hard and fast rule about such. True, trees often compete poorly with a heavy turf, and the reverse is true also at times, but that's just the fact of the matter-nothing you do will change the facts. Now, what "look" do you prefer? Wide rings of soil or mulch around your trees? Grass right up to the trunk? The problem with the latter, besides the already-mentioned competition issues, is that people often bang up the trunks of their trees when mowing around them. so from that standpoint alone, a mulch ring or some kind of planting bed is preferable. Sometimes, we do in fact remove all turf in large, old trees experiencing decline issues. This is an attempt to make the soil conditions more forest-like and has shown varying degrees of success. But to jump from there to saying-as one of your sources did-that no turf should share space with trees, is an overboard take on things. The biggest issue I see in your post is that you apparently added a lot of soil around this magnolia, right? This can be very damaging to trees-to have the grade changed over their roots. so tell us more about what was done please. We may be able to intervene before the tree starts to show its resentment of having that done. +om

You don't need to remove any. Neither honeysuckle or butterfly bush are the slightest bit fussy about soil conditions and will grow just about anywhere. If you were growing an organic veggie garden, my response may be different but with these two plants, no worries about any contaminates. I would make sure the soil is loosened properly as it is probably suffering from compaction and adding organic matter (like compost) will help to lighten and aerate the soil as well as refresh any missing nutrients.

If, when those paving stones were laid, a base (for drainage) was put down (base meaning crushed stone, etc.) that could be stone to a depth of 4 to 8 inches with sand on top to provide a leveling surface. Over the years soil can fill in between the stone making it appear that some stone got mixed in with soil. As gardengal stated above, it is probably not necessary to remove all of the stone but I would think more of adding compost than something called garden soil. kimmq is kimmsr