Good seeing you here RiverNymph...impressive list, hope we can trade, if you'd check my list and let me know. Btw, very first post in Seed Exchange : Sticky:Read before Posting by GWTamara has links to basics such as where to edit Members Page and Seed Exchange list, besides these are among other helpful sites at the bottom of the page. Happy trades, Bea

Laugh - When I saw the Skinny Dragon from ltruett I thought, 'Man, that's a lot like Lou's trees'. My "regular" Shantungs have been "meh" and didn't like the really hot days. The "Fire Dragon" didn't miss a beat. That Skinny Looks great. Metro Maples is on my drive by list if I get up that way - wish I could mail order small ones. - Hair - Truthfully, I have no idea which would survive on their own. Some of the eastern oaks I have my doubts although I did opt for more drought tolerant ones when I could. I suspect the Mexican and Cali/SW oaks would do fine given how little precip they see naturally. pH tolerance is also an unknown. The drip lines are connected to my 'tree zone' that also provides water to many of my larger landscape trees. I've backed down on the waterings this spring from last (many new 30g landscape trees went that previous fall so they need help the first summer or 3) Lacey, Bigelow, Texas Red and Live all grown naturally in the surrounding woods and it's DRY with little soil. Except for the maples, I tried to get as drought and heat tolerant as I could (caddo fits in here as well) back off on water for the oaks to see how they do. Most pics are with a Nikon D7000. Some are iPhone when I don't bring out the big gun... Couple more shots today (iPhone) Q. organensis Compton Oak Acer buergerianum More growth on Loquat Leaf Oak Mexican Blue Oak Turbinella Oak Chisos Red Oak Meléndrez Oak - I need to get more info on this one. Seems to be an evergreen version of the Chiso Red or something like that. ShuWillow Oak - Q. x moultonensis This post was edited by mattm01 on Wed, Apr 2, 14 at 0:38

It sounds like your watering schedule was set for way too Trees need to be watered deeply but infrequently. The adjustable emitters usually put out 10 gallons per hour when fully open. They have eight or so little 'streams' that flow out from the emitter. If you are watering for 20 minutes with two emitters you're applying about 6 gallons of water. For a 15 gallon tree this is probably ok but every other day is way too often. In fact every other day for any plants in a landscape is too often, unless they are newly planted of course. Watering longer (at least one hour) twice per week is probably a better strategy in the summer. Take a look at the FAQ section on watering on the home page of the AZ Garden forum for more tips. Purple leaf plums are poorly adapted to our climate and soils. They are much happier growing in Payson or Flagstaff. Poorly adapted plants are more vulnerable to pests and diseases which may be why this tree fails to thrive here despite good care.

Wow, that's a lot of plants! I don't have a list of what I'm growing in my little gardens -- sometimes it takes me a couple of weeks in the spring to realize that that weird looking weed in the corner is something I've had for years. I just assume that more plants than not will grow in this area! One of the more unusual plants I grow is agapanthus. Not a particularly hardy variety, this was simply a florists' plant my mother gave me four years ago. But it's come up reliably every year for the past three seasons in Central Ohio. It's planted against a south-facing brick wall with excellent drainage, and apparently doesn't realize it's not in zone 8+ anymore! One of my mother's more spectacular plants is a 15 year old calamondin orange that arrived as a little "get-well" houseplant. It spends the winter on the unheated glassed in back porch in Cincinnati, and now stands over 6' tall in the pot, and is nearly 4' around. It always has flowers and fruit on it, and we've picked 200 ripe fruits at one time.