Squonnk & whip1 - I am of like mind - I am very big into personal responsibility - which makes me a very odd attorney - & probably the reason why I don't do personal injury work. I knew when I signed up that there would be rules - and I do enjoy many many benefits of a HOA - which has a little to do w/snow removal & the pool & stuff, and more to do w/close-by great neighbors who are always watching out for each other's homes, etc. So, I am completely ok w/being responsible for my decision to buy into a HOA & for the negatives that go with it. My posting was really more of a vent than a "blame game" sort of thing. And, I usually need to vent a little before I come up w/my desired solution - which was to calmly tell my neighbor - the HOA Pres - which I did today - that if it were up to me, I would keep the trees & I would solve his "grass" problem by - installing a retaining wall to level the grade, keep the mega lawn mower off that small area to stop the compaction, and plant shade-friendly stuff. He said his wife agreed w/me :) I felt sooo much better after I talked to him - but I'm also glad I didn't talk to him right away b/c the litigator in me would have ripped his head off. He then told me that the HOA committee is in such a confused state that they can't even decide whether to spend $600 in annuals for the front area - sooo, that left me feeling that it was unlikely that they would get their act together any time soon to make a major tree removal, wall installation, and extensive shrubbery installation decision. BTW, when I noted all of the reasons why to do it my way, he said that one reason he wanted the extra 2 hrs of sunlight (4 - 6 pm) was to "dry out" the grass that IS backc there b/c it gets so waterlogged everytime it rains. First, it would be good if they turned off the automatic sprinklers back there. Second, he completely doesn't understand what I now know THANKS TO THE SOIL FORUM - that poor drainage has nothing to do with the sun and EVERYTHING to do with the SOIL. I feel so blessed to have been introduced to you guys! Thanks! All the Best, Tree

Still looking for a practical definition. gardengal gave us a working definition, but still looking for a definition that means something to someone with nothing more than a shovel. And sorry, hard to dig with a shovel does not work. There are numerous other factors, rockiness of the soil, moisture content, roots and other materials, and just what kind of soil you have (there are approximately 43,000 kinds of soil found in the U.S.). True, most plants do not like compacted soil. It's kinda like wearing shoes a couple or a few sizes too small. It can be done, but you're not gonna be happy about it. Of course, if we only planted if we had truly optimal conditions, we'd hardly plant anything. There are meters that can be obtained to help you measure the level of compaction. There are methods of subsoiling and other means of abrogation that can be considered. However, in practical terms, none of these are probably necessary. Ironically, one of the best combatants of compaction have recently obtained great notoriety as being "invaders". We can assume we no longer live in a pristine world, that everything has some level of disturbance, including compaction. We can also assume plants have a much greater ability to "deal" with less than ideal conditions that we assume. How many times have you seen a tree or other plant clinging to a cliff, or growing out of a crack in concrete, asphalt, or creasote soaked railroad tie? Odds are, you are ok to plant just about anything you want. Other properties of your soil (porosity, fertility) will have greater impact upon the plants you choose than compaction level. Just because I'm curious, wouldn't dumping a pile of soil on the ground and planting in that just be an inverted form of amending?

My humblest apologies for my long posts. The firmness of the roots is a good thing. Be wary of disturbing the actual root mass unnecessarily--it just may cause more damage. I know someone who bare-roots her trees every time there may be a problem, and I've been doing my best to discourage this process (ahem. you know who you are ;) Ultimately and ideally, in a potted tree, you do want lots of fine roots for nutrient uptake as opposed to woody lignified roots taking up space, but if the roots are so fragile they are breaking off essentially spontaneously, then they are not viable anyway. pH does seem to be one of those topics that sets some people off for an unclear reason, but I now fall into to the camp of I-don't-really-care-about-it. pH management in *containerized* soils is different from the earth and the reason it is a PIA IMHO is b/c it is extremely dynamic. (Out of curiosity, what is your method for checking--is it pH paper or a meter?) Having said that, citrus do prefer a *slightly* acidififed soil, but they are not blueberries. Most tap water is going to be basic to some degree to keep contaminants from precipitating out, but since you've used bagged soil, there is a very high likelihood that there is a good portion of peat moss in your mix and therefore you've already got a slightly acidified soil. I'd leave that alone for now. Otherwise, you can add a light dose of slow-release fertilizer that is nitrogen-dominant, and since many sources of nitrogen are acidifying on their own that may help. Also, I've seen a brand of those slow-release granules that also has sulfur in it, and that might help over time. When you do fertilize otherwise, you can choose an acidifying formula that way too (I use Miracid for the most part). No, thorns do not *precede* growth. They *accompany* it and you should be seeing something besides just thorns if you really do have some sort of growth. Other possibilities are thorns that you missed previously since there were more leaves to cover then, actual new vegetative growth forming (doubtful if you're still seeing signs of decline like continued leaf loss), or the beginnings of massive pathologic stress-bloom. You're going to have to wait awhile before you see results--I had a tree in CHCs (stupidly) for over a year before I pulled that sucker out and rehabbed it, and it was easily 5 mos or so before I felt like I had made any progress with it whatsoever. The tree's stored energy is eseentially depleted and it has to have time to build that back up. Which is hard when it doesn't have many funtional roots and reduced leaf surface area. Something some speak of, but I don't do, is to prune it back significantly and reduce the canopy mass when you have had major root damage. The main reason I find this difficult is that often leaves will drop first from the inside of the canopy in this situation (older leaves), and then if you prune it back you're cutting off the rest of the leaves--shooting self in the foot while you're at it, lol. The tree needs maximal photosythetic area. Personally, I think citrus is hard to kill if you've got the basics down. It's easy for them to get into trouble, but I don't think they actually die that easily from stuff like this. So it's reasonable to keep trying with this tree. Branch dieback will be your guide, but even if the graft goes, the rootstock can survive--and then in a little while you have someplace where you can do your own grafting. How appropriate--lemonade out of lemons. Literally. Please keep us updated on your progress. Hopefully someone else will comment--where is tapla, bencelest, eyeckr, jackpines, citrusboy? Surely you gents can help us out here...oh wait, I know where they are--they're sick of my longwinded posts :)

Sometimes it works in our favor, but usually they either get rain in Texas or rain in Oklahoma and it misses us both times. That happened yesterday! I don't want to blame the river, but maybe we should. However, it is my understanding that rivers do not influence the atmospheric conditions that cause rain to fall or that determine where it falls, nor do rivers influence the path taken by tornadoes. I think it is just the luck of the draw. There's been times when we have had 6-10 or even 12" of rain in one day and Burneyville didn't get any. This is why I track my own weather---because anybody's individual weather can differ greatly from what happens at their mesonet station. We call it being "in the doughnut hole", when rain falls all around us and misses us. One year, we drove up to OKC with our rototiller to till up the ground for a GW OK Forum member's garden. I had talked with her on this forum for a couple of years but never had met her spouse. When we were introduced to him, he asked where we lived and as soon as I said we were halfway between Marietta and Thackerville, his instant response (he worked in agriculture) was "oh, you're in the dry area that never gets any rain". I was floored! How could he have known that? lol. He said it was from his years of working on a custom harvesting team and coming down here to harvest wheat---he knew exactly where we lived and exactly how often the rain seems to bypass our part of the county. Rainfall is what it is. Sometimes you get it, sometimes you don't. So, at our house we are working on our 5th week with no rainfall. I water what I can, but the ground is getting so hard around the house that the clay is cracking and shifting and it is getting almost impossibly hard to lock the doors. I guess if we don't get the rain that this weekend's forecasted cold front is supposed to bring us, I'll have to water the yard deeply on all sides of the house to see if we can keep the door locks functioning. I've tried to focus the watering on the fenced garden, the containers up by the barn, and the little puddle ponds I made for the poultry to wade around in. I'm going to have to shift my focus to watering the foundation of the house if the heat and dry weather don't hurry up and give us a break. The pastures don't look too bad in some places. The sandier soil areas look better than the clay areas. Some areas, though, really have begun to brown and dry out and look horrible. The grass fires we've been having haven't been that bad in the last 3 or 4 weeks. They were worse out west, but the rain fell out there, so they should be okay there for a while. If we don't get rain this weekend, I won't do any more fall planting because there is no point in planting a lot of stuff I cannot keep well-watered.