Thanks Krista, Karl, HoovB, Petaloid, John and Jim for all your thoughts and input...Karl yes, I am hoping that Gemini will deepen in its colors at least with the leaves, but ugh, Gemini has about as much wisdom and common sense as I have. Instead of storing up chlorophyll in its leaves and tender stems, being patient, strengthening and taking its time to develop and mature, Gemini is trying to send up another flush immediately. 10 p.m. on New Year's Eve: A baby blossom bud emerged 3/4" above its sheath of leaves (fully extended "neck"). I predicted 4 other buds as well, because I started seeing the tell-tale signs of the 2 5-leaflet tender enclosed "prongs". As soon as I see a split 2 5-leaflet stem fork outwards, usually a baby bud is nested within the "sheath". New Year's Day Another 4 flower buds emerged. I give Gemini its 2nd Gardenville feeding (got delayed by a few days). January 2nd I have another one flower bud nested and emerging, and 6 very suspicious pronged stems to deal with. Total count will be 12 flower buds so far (6 definite). Sadly my house is way too large and drafty for me to do any humidity control via Karl's suggestion so all I can do is cross my fingers and shake my head at this craziness. I am expecting blackspot to strike any moment because it is a pattern of Gemini to get sick whenever it goes through a spurt of blooms. I dare not decrease the h. oil/Greencure at this point like I originally intended. Predicted survival of buds into mature blooms is only 20% at this time. Leaves and stems are way too soft and pale to support blooms!!! Why Gemini is trying to send up another flush is beyond me! Gemini is as kooky and insane as me (sigh-I think it is a "mind-reader" LOL). Jim, still no problems with spider mites... John, I have a fragrance-sport Gemini that consistently had a wonderful scent while growing outside and that is the one HUGE thing that I miss terribly. But my sport Gemini is also a BS magnet-Sport as well. Gemini is supposed to be known for its health and beauty, but mine flunks the BS test whenever it goes through a flush...It gets extremely sick and ugly, but it is also a fighter rose as well and a few weeks after the flush it will make another comeback. Tomorrow I will post a sample photo of the baby flower buds. P.S. Eluane gives everyone a puppy kiss. She is glad HoovB and Petaloid are mentioning her instead of stupid Mama fussing over some messy rose, LOL!

I decided to leave them out. Just spend a few hours in a still hot sun to position them from the winds. It's just still too mild to wanna move them. At worst in the extended I see temps in the 60's and low in the 50's. And they get unobstructed southern sun all day long. When I move them, they go into a sunny, big garage, but it's hard to keep up with the watering..., bad enough in the winter. I was considering fertilizing for the last time of the season (they haven't been fertilized in over a month), but figured the excessive rains would just leach the fertilizer out. I spent time tilling the soil and introducing more gypsum. I don't use a gritty mix but they get so darn dry in more peat/perlite based soils. Spent time hosing them down well. Been a dry Fall so far so all the rain in appreciated. I do notice that plants seem to respond better to RAIN than water out of a hose. Didn't use to believe this but in my experience tropical plants grow better with regular rain that can't be made up from irrigation. Is it too late to consider fertilizing? (I don not fertilize at all in the winter as they are kept quite cold.)

Mangos aren't from a rainforest climate. They're monsoonal, which means a hot, humid wet season (summer) with higher temperatures day and night, and a hot, low humidity, dry season (winter) with higher day temperatures and a lot lower at night. Too much humidity can cause fungal diseases so in general it's good to water the base of the plant and keep water off the leaves, especially in the colder months. Looking at the photos the mango looks good. They grow and then stop a while. New growth comes with a flush of new leaves. So it's growing normally. When your winter comes there wouldn't be much growth but still take it out into the sun each day as much as you can. Temperatures below 15C you should have it inside/warmer. It will actually survive lower temperatures, but better if warmer. A seed grown mango can take around 8 years to produce fruit. But then you can't guarantee the fruit will be much good.

Randy, just as reeljake stated, you can't kill bermuda with a scalp so don't worry. I see you mentioned having grain issues. I also have this problem in some areas. You might already be doing this, but I thought I'd suggest one technique you could try for next season to help reduce grain. If you could alternate mowing pattern each mow it helps. I mow my yard north to south, next mow east to west, next mow northeast to southwest, next mow northwest to southeast, then back to north to south and so on. Hope that makes sense. This will not solve the grain issue, but can help since the grass gets cut in different directions. Once you are a few months in the season, and the grain has started to develop if cut against it expect it to scalp significantly more than usual. You might already do this too, but one trick I used when mowing with a rotary was in the spring continue mowing at scalp setting each mow until grass gets thick and starts to look scalped again. This is the point I would increase height of cut by raising the front wheels only. This creates just enough increase in the height to stop most of the scalping. When another increase is needed to reduce scalp raise the back wheels to match the front. Continue this through the season as needed. Also I see where you want to scalp at 2" in March. That would be ok but if you could go lower without bottoming out on the bumps it would actually set you up for a better start in the spring. If you've never scalped lower than 2" be prepared to bag a lot of material. Yes this is more work but it pays off if you can do it. If not it's no big deal. Bermuda can be managed in different ways and it really comes down to how involved you want to be with it and the look you want it to have.