do it just before the ground freezes ... when your plants are already dormant ... maybe mid to late oct in z5????? with spring thaw.. and rains.. it will wash the good stuff into your soil .. you are spot on on not doing it when the plants are trying to harden off for winter.. that is a real bad time to mess with anything that MIGHT be a fertilizer ... hard to tel with generic bagged manure ... we want it there for spring.. might want to keep the bags in the garage.. so they arent frozen solid. when you decide to do it.. lol.. been there.. done that.. ken

spot on mel ... the first thing i did way back when .. was run spigots all over the 5 acres.. like spigots at a cemetery ... placed them about every 50 feet ... so that i could cover most of the garden with one 75 foot hose.. rather than dragging 450 feet of hose i was using the first year ... i dont know what you won .. value wise.. but consider investing a little extra cash.. to live your dream.. if necessary ... in a typical suburban rectangle yard.. i would suggest one spigot on each side.. plus the one at the house ... personally .. i skipped electronics... when i get too old to go turn on the water.. i may as well give up the garden ... hosta will need more than the grass ... but other plants will need less .. etc ... i never bothered to figure out how fancy of a computer you would need.. and how many miles of wire ... to custom fit individual bed water requirements ... time the lawn ... but not the gardens is probably the way to go ... ken

Now is a great time to move plants. The spring bloomers won't miss a beat if you move them now & keep moist until the fall rains return. Smaller perennials would do fine & might even do better if you moved them now rather than spring, but not the fall bloomers. If it were me I'd wait to move the hardy fuchsias until spring to get 'em established before winter next year. Same for any warm season grasses, but cool grasses could be moved. Where I'm at in western WA it rains even more than Seattle dumping just as the clouds lift over the Cascades, so winter wet plus deeper & longer freezes make me hesitant to move a lot in fall though I've moved shasta daisy in early November. If you're in town & in a protected yard you might have no trouble moving the fuchsias now even though they're in flower. I've read to plant fuchsias deep like tomatoes & mulch well. Anything to protect those roots! Good luck.

Does this warrant an emergency repot? What's the emergency?It doesn't look like your plant is about to go down for the count. No, it doesn't warrant an emergency repot, and, if it was my plant, I wouldn't repot now unless I cut it back fairly hard. I know ideally this should be done in spring, but will it be ok to wait the 7-8 months before then to do so? Yes, you can wait - no problem. An emergency repot would be one that's immediately required if the plant is to remain viable. Not a scare tactic - just a fact - the plant is far more likely to succumb to the ministrations of a first time repotter than it is to root congestion between now and somewhere around the vernal equinox (Mar 21). When roots come out of pots crowding is already in an advanced state. This can't be said with any degree of certainty. Roots are opportunists. Most growers believe roots have extra sensory perception and choose to grow toward a moisture source or where superior aeration or nutrition is found. In fact, roots grow wherever conditions are favorable and don't grow where conditions are not. If roots find the air and moisture levels beneath the pot to be favorable, they will grow there whether or not the rest of the root mass is congested. I water most plants daily in the summer. This isn't necessarily because they need it, but the soils I use allow me to do this. It takes me about a hour to water when I do. it would take 2.5-3 hours if I had to check moisture levels of each plant. I have a 60" tempered glass table in my front garden that is supported by a very large overturned ceramic pot. The glass is textured so allows air beneath the pots as well as moisture. Some, but not all plants in pots w/o legs will have roots poking through the drainage mesh within a short period (a month?) after repotting. Whether it occurs quickly or not at all depends on species and shape of the pot bottom. It seems like there are some hard and fast rules about when it's ok to repot so I wanted to make sure I wasn't breaking some kind of plant law by doing it this late in the year. No hard and fast rules, and I've seen no evidence of anyone trying to rule someone else's world. That said, there are times better than others to repot. or prune hard. As plants go through their growth cycle, their response to root work varies to the extreme. The ficus I repot today will be pushing new growth within a week. If I repot it in January. I might not see new growth until late May, and the plant will be more vulnerable in the interim period because it's defenses are closely tied to its metabolic rate. Someone elsewhere mentioned that these could possibly be "feeler roots" coming out of the drainage hole due to water sitting in the pebble tray which happens sometimes, even if the plant itself is not rootbound. Is this a viable explanation? No, but it's a shining example of a horticultural myth. I tried lifting it out of the pot to take a look at the roots and it wouldn't budge a millimeter... OK - it's rootbound. The best response isn't to repot it now. In fact, if there was that concernthe blooms should come off. Your plant isn't circling the drain. If you have grave concerns, and you shouldn't, you can wait until the bloom cycle ends, then "pot up" (as opposed to repotting) using ballast in the bottom of the pot to eliminate the lion's share of excess water in the medium - unless you're using a high quality medium that holds very little perched water. Ballast Can Make Life Much Easier. To pot-up, cut 4 vertical slits in the root mass, remove the mat of roots at the bottom of the pot if there is one, and repot into a larger pot. This will allow you to avoid all the unnecessary stress of repotting now and ensures the plant will gain a good measure of vitality that will go a long way toward ensuring a fast recovery when it's repotted. It goes w/o saying that anyone is free to do as they wish with their plant. As usual, I'm looking at things from the plant's perspective, nearly acting as an advocate for the plant, which means the only argument would center on what's best for the plant. Al