lou_midlothian_tx , Your yard looks nice. Did you establish it 3 years ago from solid sod or sprig it? How much soil prep was done? I have trouble believing that a St. Augustine yard can be maintained long term only with your "organic" fertilizer. A three year old sodded yard can be nice on almost nothing. When I say long term I mean let's see the yard after 10 to 25 years. I'd be willing to wager that it would be 25% St.Augustine and 75% other grass and weeds of many varieties. I'd also like to see a St. Augustine yard that was started from sprigs among all the other weeds and grasses with nothing but your "organic program". Where I come from it's virtually impossible to compete with weeds and other grasses without using some herbicides. Even with these herbicides the weeds sometimes get ahead of the curve. I'm no knocking what you say. I just disagree that it's so clear cut as what you imply about organics. I had a St. Augustine yard for 40 years. At times it looked as good as your picture but at other times weeds seemed to come from Mars and invade with a vengance.

It may just be transplant shock, give it a few more days and see if they start to perk up. Also, you may want to post this on the houseplant forum as, in spite of it's name , it's not a true lily.

See the middle pot for an example of water 'perching' above a "drainage layer". You CAN make a "drainage layer" work for you under specific circumstances. One way is to screen the vines out of peastone or start with gravel in the 1/8-1/2" size range. Mix 5 parts of the gravel with 1 part of your peat-based soil and lay that down 4-5" deep on the bottom of the pot. You'll still have a perched water table, but since the gravel makes up 83% of the mix and can hold no water, you will have eliminated that fraction (83%) of perched water. Essentially you're utilizing it in such a way that it becomes ballast instead of a failure as a "drainage layer". Another way to use drainage layers is stratification. Water won't 'perch' above another strata if particles in the lower strata are less than 2.1X larger than the size of particles in the strata above. You COULD start out with a thin layer (1") of gravel from 1/8-1/4 on the bottom of the pot (grower size grit) followed by a 1" layer of starter grit, followed by 1" of uniformly coarse sand about 1/32-1/16" (roofing company), then your medium. That should eliminate perched water entirely. Of course, neither of these options does anything for aeration in the problem soil, which is why it's still much better to use a soil made of a very large volume of particles in the 1/8-3/8 size range to increase aeration and significantly reduce the amount of water a soil is capable of holding. Al

Jem, Monday was just the first day that he could turn in his official paperwork for retirement.....to get the ball rolling through the university and state retirement systems. His actual last day is July 2. He's pretty self motivated......I won't need to create busy work for him. He's a young 61, with lots of friends outside work, fun activities that he's looking forward to participating in more fully, and an interest in becoming more involved with the community. I so appreciate everyone's well wishes! It is an exciting time for someone who has worked hard and long for his whole life.