Well, I doubt my climate is as wet as southern England's, and it certainly isn't as wet as western Oregon's! In an average year Boston gets about 40" of precipitation (some of which is snow, but most of which is rain). That's about 5" more than Seattle gets, but Seattle's atypical for the northwest because it sits in the rain shadow of the Olympic Peninsula. Only very rarely do we ever get a day like their notorious all day winter drizzles, and that almost never in winter. Usually in the Northeast, when it rains, it rains. I also have to take his recommendations with a grain of salt! In my case I have to be very careful about making certain what he's recommending can stand my winter cold. Winters here are usually wet, but sometimes there's not all that much snow, and temperatures fluctuating between the mid-30's during the day and the upper teens at night, with wet ground, kill plants very well if they aren't adapted to that. (Having said that, I definitely can grow , which he mentions in passing as a must-have flowering shrub, and I very much hope to someday!) I can grow some rhododendrons (but no camellias :-( ), but they have to be hardy enough to tolerate this climate and that often limits the flower color choices to old-time "ironclad" cultivars such as Roseum elegans (which, frankly, I find both ubiquitous and also kind of ugly although it's the most tolerant rhody I know of). I could grow many of the hardier evergreen azaleas and most of the deciduous ones. I wish the deciduous ones were more popular. I think they're lovely! Unfortunately you hardly ever see them around people's homes here, and that's a shame! (Having worked as a propagator at a wholesale azalea/rhododendron production nursery I realize one big reason they're less common is because they're more difficult to propagate, which makes the deciduous azaleas more expensive even though they're no more difficult for a homeowner to grow once planted, and actually can even be easier to grow. They also aren't suited to topiary pruning and that means most "landscapers" wreck them!)

An update. After months of cold and damp coastal weather, we finally are getting some warm sunny days here in coastal N. California. The Santa Teresa is now almost 3 months into the new pot and gritty mix surrounding. It's sporting new purple leaf growth on most major branches. My 2 older trees are showing signs of blossoms or new leaf growth now. My previously rootbound Valencia that got bare rooted lost about half its leaves, but has stabilized. It has dozens on young green fruit that are still holding and expanding in size. I did get a fair bit of branch die back over the past 3 months, and I did some light pruning. Because I am starting to seeing signs of the trees thriving , I decided I'd go ahead and repot the remaining 3 older trees last week. This time, I SIFTED the fir bark and Napa 8822 to remove the fines. It was much work, but it makes a cleaner looking mix and doesn't seem to separate as much after watering. One day, I may redo the others (sift them), but for now, they need to recover and thrive some before disturbing them again. I'm hoping the fines don't adversely effect things for the time being - I will be able to compare them with the trees in sifted mixes. On fertilizer, I took advice here and got Foilage Pro (FP). I went light at first then increased to 1 tsp per gallon manually applying by hand once a week. On top of that, because I have a drip irrigation system (no fertilizer feeding into it), I later added some CRF (Osmocote), but then started to get leaf burn. I backed off to 1/4 tsp per gallon FP and the burn subsided, that's when I started to notice all the new growth coming in (after 2 months). My drip irrigation system comes on every 3 or 4 days, and I manually water once a week with the light dose of FP fertilizer at 1/4 tsp per gallon. I'll post some photo when I have more to show - right now, all the older trees are not in the greatest health, partly I suspect the previous soils were old and the roots never penetrated the lower parts of the pots (all except my orange tree which became rootbound). Hopefully, as the months go by, they will thrive in the new soil. The next 3 months will be the sunniest/warmest for us no more coastal fog) until the winter rains start, so I am hoping we'll get some growth. One good sign I did notice- I have some onions nearby that have gone to seed. The winds blows the seeds into the pots, and I am finding them sprouting very rapidly in the gritty mix. It must be very good on any fine/delicate roots.

Good AM Conifer collectors ~ please educate this old & very curious *giving tree Duchess of a Ginkgo* slave. How is the connection between these 2 trees I suddenly found in this thread? Have just recently been reading & asking in this forum, triggered by the cute li'l D Alberta & now inherited a friend's cute E Cypress (to care for). Suddenly the name GINKGO ~ I'm so keenly close to (emotionally). Mine is a giant of a tree & quite prolific ~ now adding the word DWARF into the equation really piqued my curiosity even more! Really curious ~ is it just as Sara eloquently puts it in the tree forum "A whole new obssession!" TIA

Hey no problem I love her (her name is pam) she has all sorts of goodies and always sells out of most items.. if you get a chance her goat milk soap is AWESOME as well :) Here is a link that might be useful: I did a post about her awhile ago.. might be worth it for everyone to check out