Some info I found said Jackfruit soil should not be amended w/fertilizer until 3 months or established. When grown from seed, checking the roots each time it is repotted. If the tap root is bent, cut just above the bend, or the root system will be compromised, and a weak , non fruiting tree will be the result. Once sprouted, they are grown in the greenhouse for about 30 more days. Then, they are transplanted in a deep 4"by 4" by 14" deep nursery pots with standard nursery mix, same as what they are sowed in. 40% peat, 30% coarse sand, 20% cypress sawdust, and 10% perlite. 100 days in 50% shade house, with overhead irrigation for 12 minutes a day. At this time of transplanting, they get a slow release fertilizer (18-6-8 nutricote), a drench of liquid fertilizer (20-20-20) and chelated iron(sequestrene) at recommended rates. At about 100 days they are the diameter of a pencil, perfect for grafting. Those that are not grafted are checked for tap root restriction, and cut if necessary, then transplanted into a 7" by 7" by 14" nursery pot. They are then given another dose of the same fertilizer treatment as the first transplant. Temperatures are about 82-89 and 77 at night, fahrenheit. Ph is 6-7.5

Yes, yes we've discussed this ad nauseam, the irony or twist or whatever you want to call it is that this plant certainly does not need California summers. It doesn't need them to survive and it doesn't need them to have an extra shot at surviving cold winter. Believe me I'll be the first to admit when something from a dry summer climate is ungrowable. Before the 2nd great freeze we had the wettest June ever here, it killed some of my newly planted stuff and caused a huge 40' Morus to defoliate but apparently survive. None of the redwoods are in a particularly well draining spot (though neither are they in swamps) and they all made in through the following winter that was horrendously cold. I remind you that during some ice ages the glaciers came about as far south as the WA/OR border. Certainly S. s. has a "genetic memory" to survive much colder conditions than its current zn 9-10 haunts. 2500' ft. in the coast ranges wouldn't be very cold but the worst frost hollows at that elevation could certainly be into zn 8 territory and then the plants surviving zn 7 on the east coast doesn't seem so far fetched. In the Great Freeze of 1990, a low altitude location in Marin County reached an astonishing 4F! The Bancroft Garden in Walnut Creek was something like 12F. And that's just what we know in recent human history. It's a known fact that 'Chapel Hill' survived a verified -9F in, what was it, 85? It was already a large plant then, nobody was covering it with Tyvek and warming it with orchard smudge pots LOL. As I said the Barnes tree surely saw temps around 0F more often. I'm not saying mine will survive another winter like 1899 but I'm saying they will probably survive well enough during my lifetime. Knock on wood (this winter is now over with respect to potentially catastrophic freezes) but it's fascinating that as bad as the past two winters were, as well as this brief spell of this one, it hasn't gone below 0F here when it certainly did in 85 & 94 and several other cold winters back to the infamous 1899, when the Atlantic froze as far south as Virginia Beach. Has something fundamentally changed?* I don't know but by the time I find out it hasn't I predict my redwoods will be big enough to survive almost any winter this area throws at them. * to clarify, I mostly think I just got lucky, but I can't rule out that something could mean that for a few decades we have, I don't know, a pattern of longer winters that don't get quite as cold, versus shorter winters with more serious freezes. Of course I much prefer the former. I also think my research in where to place this garden paid off: I had a vague sense 11 years ago that I should avoid totally flat terrain and that has been a good choice as is evidenced by vast swaths of the interior Delmarva going below 0F in one of the prior winters because the cold air had nowhere to drain.

Thank you very much I just purchased this stone as well and noticed every time any drop of water falls on the stone it makes a water stain which tells me is very porous. Now I know it needs to be sealed. Awesome to come across this blog.

Don’t worry about replacing the hostas, they’ll grow back... maybe not satisfactorily this season, but they will grow back. I have had good success with Liquid Fence. It stinks that first day, and you won’t want to stand downwind when you’re spraying it, but the scent dissipates to us after about a day, but stays strong enough for them. I respray every 2-3 weeks. I’ve used it regularly for a handful of years. My mil says they get used to the sprays... but I haven’t found that to be the case... or my garden isn’t tempting enough for them otherwise. You might want to use a variety of methods, I’m sure others will chime in with what works for them.