i have pure yellow sand .... 100% drainage ... IT IS THE MOST PERFECT SOIL TO GROW A VAST MAJORITY OF TREES [including maples and rebuds] ... your nursery gave you bum info to sell you over-priced products that were not necessary .... i would not go back there for 'expert' information .. though i might go back to buy stock THAT I KNOW is worthy .... as you drive around your 'hood ... is every tree within 2 miles cabled and chained and tied to the ground ... i will presume the answer is no ... if that is true ... it should dawn on you.. that local trees are more than capable of handling your local wind .... i know you are excited about your new house.. new garden.. new trees ... and i thank God you found us .... but you are thinking WWWAAAYYY outside the box here .... trees can grow centuries... with little or no help from us .. yet you want to go bonzo on these things .... relax ... slow down ... we will get you where you want to go ... at worst .. you could cut it off completely at the braces.. and insure that only one new branch lives thru next year.. and this tree can double in size in the next few years ... i actually had to do that with one stubborn redbud, years ago .... it just refused to grow to my expectations ... a hobby for dad.. who cut it to the ground a couple times to get it to grow like a tree, instead of a bush ... you have months to make these decisions ... for an investment of about $100 ... you might just want to replace these two trees with smaller versions .... and just get rid of the nightmares the prior owner created .... frankly.. if i didnt know better i might guess they just liked torturing their trees .... when i bought my first house.. i tried to 'save' all the historical plants that were most likely planted in the 40's by the original owners ... the happiest day of my garden life at that house was when i got rid of the last nightmare they planted ... history or not ... if you had 5 acres.. and these things were way out back ... then a renovation project might be interesting and fun .... but if you are within the limitations of suburbia.. which it looks like with that fence.. your peace of mind ... and your enjoyment of your yard.. might be better served by starting over ... good luck ken

Hey Pelham, I wrote a reply to this message a couple of days ago but for whatever reason it did not go through. I will try again :) I had a similar situation with my 3 Duncan Grapefruits this winter. I had a bout with scale all winter long speading from my fingerlime to ever Citrus I owned at the time. The Grapefruit trees took it hard, one loosing 70% of it's leaves and the other lost about 50% before it was all said and done. I also aparently had 2 spotted spider mites whic from what I was told was causing the majority of the leaf loss. You can tell if you have them by looking for little spider strings on the tree. So here are some questions and suggestions. 1) Have you cleaned off the tree of all scale and erradicated them all. If not, even though a lot of people may scorn me for the reccomendation, I reccomend 1-2 Tablespoons of Malithion and 1 tablespoon of Petrolium based horticutural oil. Please be aware that you may loose a few more of the old leaves from this because it weighs them down, however they were most likely going to fall anyway. I have a feeling you may not loose any since a storm really ripped them off the tree. If you have any of the leaves that fell off still lying around you may want to put them in a flatbed scanner and scan them at about 1200dpi and see if you have any spider strings on them as well, if you do, this will justify this treatment a bit further. 2) I would reccomend a good fertilizer to encourage growth, don't burn out the roots, but a good kick may help it out. 3) Re-apply the Malithion about 1-1.5 months later again to make sure the scale (& mites if applicable) is dead, dead, and ohh did I mention dead. Use 1 teaspoon each this time instead of 2 and 1. You may find that the scale may wind up making the tree grow many more leaves than you ever thought it could. Once I killed these suckers off, for every leaf lost I got at minimum 8 leaves and a new shoot off the tree. BTW, my Dunacan Grapefruits are planted from seed, not a graft, just as a note. Hope this helps ya out. VTY -Mark

Mayflowers - I dont know about the stain or the finish. So here is an update. I discovered from our designer that these are not custom made cabinets. They were made by Mid Continent Cabinets. Apparently this factory is not able to, or doesnt want to, pick out less knotty pieces of alder to remake the doors. We could ask them to remake x doors and drawers and we might get x drawers and doors that are worse, or better, or the same. This seems like very odd quality control to me, and a huge waste of everyone's time. Our designer spoke with someone at Mid Continent who said that alder is a poor man's cherry, and that we should be able to replace all the doors with cherry. She left us a sample and indeed it looks like it might work, But Mid Continent quoted us $2600 to remake all drawers and doors in cherry. Our designer said she would pay half "because she and I are both guilty of miscommunication during the initial cabinet design", even though I gave her the exact bill of materials that we had chosen a year ago with another company. As well as shown her pictures of the cabinets. Whatever. So my question to you guys - Ive heard that cherry darkens with time. Would you take the chance getting cherry drawers and doors on an alder frame? The colors match very well right now. Personally, I kind of want our designer to reimburse us some $$$ and use it to get custom doors and drawers from a builder who actually cares about quality and can hand pick the alder. And then she can wash her hands of this mess and we can take responsibility of the final product rather then being at the mercy of unhelpful companies like Mid Continent.

Sharif, why do you water so often? Is it because you enjoy doing it? Some of us do for therapy and have much time to water frequently. In fact, the more often you have to water, the healthier your trees and houseplants are. It take diligence but is fun to do when you use a mix that allows you to do so. The mix you just made will allow you to do so but not for long. Vladimir made many great points. The concept is to use a more bark material as you can, and only add a small fraction of finer material for water retention. YOU don't mention any perlite? If you want to water less often, use less fine material, if you want to water less, use more. In affect, our trees and containerized plants would love to watered every but many of us just don't have the time or remember to do so. Watering every day is as good as it get for all potted plants and doable with very porous mixes if one chooses to do so. You avoid root rot and deprived oxygenated roots if so. The original mix you you tree was in broken down within a short period of time as you found out the hard way. The one you made will do the same within months and hopefully not in the heart of winter if so. If it were my tree, I would repot now, again, into a better drawing mix that will hold up for at least a year or two, since repotting will not shock the tree as it would in winter. You have better chances of a good reaction from your tree now. Just pretend it got blown over by the wind today and fell out of its pot. It would survive. They are tough plants. I would use a ration like Vladimir said and of pine bark instead of wood chips since wood chips can burn roots and deprive your mix of much needed nitrogen as it decomposes... Stick your tree in full shade after its repot for quicker recovery and it should be fine. If your tree was healthy during the repot, then you could of stuck it right back into slight with o issues at all.. Mike