Hey, Billy Rae! Go for it! You have nothing to fear! My only advice, up front, is this: Don't buy a braided group of plants. In my opinion, the braided plants are doomed to failure. Now, onto the story of how I came by my Pachira: My brother has a Pachira that used to be braided...slowly, all but one of the trunks died. The remaining trunk had been the largest/healthiest from the start, which is why I always suggest that a buyer simply purchase a full, healthy, single-trunked specimen. Anyhow, my brother is rough on plants. During one of his "moods," he broke several leaves off his Pachira...I can't remember if he bit them off, or if he was swinging his glow-sticks around the room like weapons. Long story short, he placed one of those leaves in the bottom of a plastic cup, filled with generic peat-based potting soil. The soil was constantly moist/wet because there were no drainage holes in the cup. He handed me the cup, and said here, take it. So I did. I brought the leaf from Sacramento to Auburn, where it sat from February to May on a warm Eastern window-sill. Surprisingly, it grew into a full-sized plant! Now, I summer my Pachira on the front deck (western exposure), beneath a large maple tree. One year, I put my Pachira out before the maple had leafed-out...big mistake! Nearly every Pachira leaf was sunburned white. New leaves grew when the dead leaves dropped, but now I know to wait until I can offer filtered sunlight. After a period of acclimation, Pachira can handle quite a bit of sun. Josh

Thanks, guys. The leaves haven't bleached but some are wilted. The pots were rooted inside and moved to the garage last weekend to acclimate them to the heat a little more. The were originally potted a couple months ago in 20 ounce cups...moved to the 1 gallon pots last weekend. I watered the pots on saturday and will mist the leaves again tonight when I get home. If they survived today's heat I'd be pleasantly surprised. The trees are potted in tapla's mixture.

I don't think fig trees go dormant at room temperature. In southeast Kansas, I have an Alma fig that I just set near a sunny window after puchasing it last August...it broke dormancy in January and now has a burba crop of four figs...not bad for only being three feet tall. I just water when the soil gets noticably dry to avoid root rot, etc. Of course, it would probably be much taller by now if I placed it outside, but still, its flourishing in its current spot. -Trent

The coming back to life depends on how cold it got in the garage during the winter. The first to get damaged are the finest feeder roots when it gets cold, with the pot size being another factor with bigger pot size providing insulating buffer. The next to get damaged are the next size roots and in extreme cold situation the big fat roots from the stem. The time it will take to green up depends on how far the roots got damaged. It can green up even if just the fatest roots survive but will need time to send out more roots from the fat roots. Just keep it moist and wait. One of my fig trees greened up in early July while other trees were having small pea size figs then!