This year, I've seen more damage after I get the really tender hosta shipped to me, and I think it is like other years and we are cooler, but the leaves are more tender than before. So I'm winding up with holes burned into the leaves on the high spots, where the sunlight catches first, probably it boils the water in the leaf and a few days later the leaf dessicates and then the tissue drops away. There is all sorts of damage that can happen up there, down here. I tucked my two new orders away in the shade ALL day long until they realize they aren't in Kansas any more, and put on some sun screen. Heck, it's been so much cooler here this spring, I didn't even think about them finding it HOT.

richland gold.. if i recall PROPERLY ... is the yellow gold standard ... the color change of yours seems consistent .. go to RG at the library and hit the little link to myhosta database .. richland indicating van wade named it... ken

GOTCHA!! I see the whole picture here! Thank you all for your imput! It is very understandable and I see things a lot clearer now. Choosing non-married couples makes sense for a lot of reasons. I am no longer miffed and will be very supportive. Actually, I am kind of glad it happened this way because it will allow my fiance a better understanding of the relationship I have with my own god daughter. He is such a wonderful partner and father, that any child he is able to have an intimate relationship with would be truly blessed anyway. No - I am not Catholic, but the rest of my family is. To Carla35 - Yes I do know what it means to be a God Parent. I am a God mother to my best friends' daughter. We baptized our son last July so I am very familiar with the Catholic religions practices regarding God parents and the sacrament of baptism. To Colleenoz - My fiance's neices and nephews not calling me aunt doesn't bother me. I used it as an example for you all to better understand my relationship with the children. It is up to their parents and them as to what they call me and if they ever decide to even call me "aunt". Also - we DO have tentative wedding dates set for either November 1st or 8th of 2008. We plan to marry in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Thank you all for your comments!

I know this is long, Heidi, but I've got personal experience with your situation. To be brief, I'm confident that this tree is not even close to death's door, and would be much better served by fixing the causes of its decline now so it can green up and be much healthier to deal with the stress of repotting next summer. In particular, your ficus was thriving until three months ago, and we know that the decline was caused by low light and poor watering, which means that fixing the root congestion and soil aren't an emergency. To be clear, gardengal is probably right that you could repot now without killing the tree, but because it would be easy to get it green again by correcting the biggest problems now, you would be best off waiting until summer to do major root work and put it in a great growing medium. Then you will be rewarded with a burst of new growth, and you'll soon be pinching growing tips and pruning to control its enthusiastic growth and tell it to fill in all those gaps left by dropped leaves. My experience: I have two smaller roughly five year old ficuses that were completely rootbound and were stuck in a dim corner. I often forgot about watering until leaves started yellowing and dropping, and the I'd fill their tall plastic 'saucers' and left the water there until they stopped soaking it up. In other words, I drowned the roots every time I watered, and maximized the amount of deadly mineral deposits in the soil. Aside from feeble attempts to maintain a few leaves, they had almost stopped growing entirely because their depleted energy reserves made them more vulnerable to attack and only allowed them to put our a few leaves at a time, and most of the buds and leaves that appeared were killed by spider mites. But these are tough plants, so they clung to life for about three years before I finally cared enough to search for answers and found these forums. I immediately started treating the mite infestation, thoroughly flushed the pots (I swear I could hear them sigh with relief), fertilized with a weak solution of Foliage Pro, which has a great ratio of basic nutrients plus all the micronutrients plants need, moved it in front of my best window, which only provides mediocre light, and added bright white (not soft white) 5000k 100W led and cfl bulbs in clamp-on fixtures. Two months later, each branch has about half a dozen new leaves, including some emerging near the stem (a sign that the tree is getting better). It's wonderful to see them getting so green, and I'm already reading up on how to prune them when they get growing again. So Heidi, if I were in your place, I'd start by checking the leaves for spider mites with a bright light and a magnifying glass (they're tiny red dots on the leaves, and you may see little bits of webs on the leaves our branches). Ask about treatment if you find any. Then I'd flush the pot (details below), fertilize with a 3:1:2 ratio fertilizer (miracle gro general purpose granules are easy to find and the right ratio), move it to the best window I had, and put two 100 or brighter led or cfl bulbs in it for 12 hours a day, using a timer. From then on, check soil moisture by pushing a sharpened 3/8" dowel all the way through to the bottom of the pot, and DO NOT WATER until the dowel comes out completely clean and dry (at that point there's still a lot of water inside the soil particles). When that happens, water until about 15% of the water exits the drain holes, let it drain, and then either tilt the pot at 45 degrees for 15-30 minutes after watering to remove excess water, or insert a wick into a drain hole and raise the pot up so the wick won't come in contact with the drained water. You can wait until the surface of the soil is dry to start checking the soil moisture, but after that you should check daily until you have a feel for how long it takes for the poor to dry up. About flushing: flush with lukewarm water, using about ten times the pot's capacity, then give it a weak solution of fertilizer. Use R/O (reverse osmosis) water if possible; water from supermarket water machines are usually $.39 per gallon, and that little pot will maybe need two or three gallons to do the job. My water is hard, so I used R/O water to flush, and because my tap water is hard I use water from my cheap faucet-mounted filter for regular watering. And the reason midsummer is the best time to do something stressful is that 1) ample summer sunlight generates much more energy from the leaves than even a lot of winter sunlight can provide, and 2) the plant is programmed to put energy into new growth in summer, whereas in winter it wants to store it for use in the spring. From several people's experience, including Al (talks), who knows whereof he speaks, if you take two healthy plants and repot one now and one next June, the second will be in better shape next fall than the one you repotted a year earlier. Sorry for my rambling post, and I hope it helps at least a little.