Hi all, not sure I'd classify myself as a "grower" but I do dabble with my blue spruce. I have maybe a thousand I've grown from seed, ranging in size from 3" to 12" now, and still in 5" plugs. This fall I will transplant about 250 of the largest to 1 gal. pots and see how it goes (and move to 2 gal. next year, once I see how things develop. I've been researching soil-less container soils. I can buy Pro-Mix or the Sunshine Mix #4 but am concerned that the pH will be a bit high. I understand that in order for a blue spruce to be "blue" (at least for the 50% that have the ability to turn blue from the regular kaibab variety - although I have many "Majestica" that claim 90% will turn blue, and have some (claimed to be) "Misty Blue" which apparently were selected from the best of the Majestica orchard, but are no longer harvested) the pH should be about 5.5 or even less. I think both of the above pre-mixes have pH's greater than this. One mix I saw called for about 20% perlite, 20% vermiculite, 60% sphagnum peat moss, and 1/2 cup each of bone meal, blood meal, and dolomitic lime per 8 gallons of mix. I suspect that if I were to use this mix for blue spruce, I might eliminate vermiculite and reduce the lime to maybe 2 tablespoons? It looks from this thread that using primarily pine bark fines may be adviseable? I suppose I could also substitute turface for perlite although not sure I could find same. I don't know if I'd need any other additives like CRF? I'm hoping to keep costs down. It seems to me that I can mix my own soil for about 1/3rd less cost than pre-mix, unless I'm missing something? I have hundreds++ more blue spruce coming down the pipeline, so cost is important. Sorry for being so new at this. It was enjoyable planting the seeds (all outdoors, which was a challenge) but now a few years later I want to keep going with this, so am on to the potting stage. Any advise is helpful.

Amending the soil just in the planting hole isn't recommended. In clay soils in particular, it creates a pot-like or bath-tub effect because when water perks into the amended soil it has no way to drain. Even if the soil isn't clay, the roots of a shrub are less likely to grow from the amended soil into the native soil. If I want to amend soil I usually do the entire bed. You can layer amendments on top of the soil and mix them in with the soil to make a somewhat raised bed which will drain more normally or at least allow a root run raised above the worst of the water. Or you can build a real raised bed large enough for shrubs. I couldn't think of any shrubs that fit all of your requirements, and when I plugged all your requirements into the Missouri Botanical Garden plant finder no plants came back. Either you will want to compromise on some of your wishes, or perhaps you can combine shrubs and perennials to get evergreen and red flowers, just not all on the same plant. There are some short forms of white cedar, Thuja occidentalis, which is evergreen and is fine in wet to average moisture, but has no flowers. Some have gold or bluish foliage. Some flowering plants that are happy in damp soil to standing water that have blooms in the pink range (not really red-fushia) include Clethra alnifolia 'Ruby Spice' or a pink form of Rhododendron viscosum, swamp azalea. The azalea blooms in spring and has nice fall color, and the Clethra blooms in late summer or fall and has clear gold fall color. Neither have a particularly long bloom period or are evergreen. Both will probably need pruning to keep in bounds. You may find some smaller pink forms of the Clethra. Ilex verticillata, winterberry holly, is deciduous but has red berries all fall into early winter and like the Thuja grows naturally in swamps. Rosa palustris, swamp rose, has pink flowers. Red-twigged dogwoods are deciduous, but will have red branches all winter. Younger twigs have brighter bark, so you can prune some branches to the ground every year to keep it smaller and redder. Some forms have gold bark or leaves that are variegated with white or gold. Cardinal flower, Lobelia cardinalis is red-flowered and likes wetlands. It flowers in late summer. Louisiana iris thrives in wet conditions, and has several forms with various reddish tones, though no really true reds. Both these are perennials.

Fish Legs, I bought a spigot from Home Depot, but I'm sure you could get one anywhere. I just looked for something that was a 2-piece design; one half screwed into the other, with the rain barrel in between. I sealed it with a rubber washer and caulk. I have a hose attached to it. It works best if you have your rain barrel up on blocks or something; the water will only flow out of the hose if the water level in the barrel is higher than the end of the hose.

Well, we live in town, although it's not a very large one, so I imagine Code Enforcement would be on me if I tried having a sawdust toilet. But I'm doing all I can to conserve. It's been very hot and dry here. Even though I haven't posted much lately, I do get on for a little while every couple of days to read and find out what the rest of you are doing. I'm so glad you all take time out of what are probably very busy days to post and I'm sorry I haven't been very good at it. In the house, we conserve several ways. I do run my dishwasher but there are always those pots and pans that don't fit, and I won't put certain other things in the dishwasher. So I'm doing a sink-full of dishes probably every day. I put soap and water in the largest of whatever is dirty and wash everything in it, kind of rinsing things over it until it gets full. I keep rinsed-out milk jugs at the sink for pouring extra sink water into, and that's where the water goes from that largest thing when I've washed it clean. I find I accumulate several gallons a day just cleaning up in the kitchen. We have a small pump, and we use that to pump bathwater, either into milk jugs (I saved them all winter), or sprayed directly on flowers and shrubs with a hose connected to the pump. DH and I, whichever takes a bath first, "save" our bathwater for whoever takes it last that day. DGS, though, tends to fill his tub too full in spite of my best efforts to remind him, "It's a BATHTUB, not a SWIMMING POOL". If you use bathwater to water things with, please only put it on flowers and shrubs, not on vegetables and herbs, as there's danger of e.Coli if you do. On days when I have enough wash for a load, we pump our bathwater into the washer and use it for the wash load, adding detergent, of course. This goes down the drain simply because we don't have a good way to do otherwise, and the washer uses new water for the rinse. DH and I do tend to wear our jeans two or three days instead of one. But our shirts and skivvies would be too stinky to put into service for a second day. With our toilet, we follow the motto that California is known for, adapted as such: "Welcome to Oklahoma, baked by the sun, Where we don't flush for Number One". Of course, at the end of the day I go around and make sure everything's flushed because I don't like it all sitting like that at night. I kinda don't like it much during the day, but it's just the three of us and two bathrooms so it doesn't get too bad. When we get rain, I collect the rainwater that pours off the roof into two sprayer tanks that I bought at Atwood's on sale. The first one that I got was mushroom shaped, capacity 210 gallons, and I really thought it didn't hold enough because a good hard rain would overflow it. Plus it's shape did not fit very well with where we placed it. So next Atwood's sale, we got another, this one shaped like a big barrel on it's side, capacity 300 gallons. It fits better where we had the mushroom shaped one, and we moved the mushroom one to the other side of the house. A good rain will fill them both up and then some. Both tanks have a 8" diameter round hole in the top that the drain pipe is dropped down into when rain is forecast. When the tank is full, we reconnect the drain pipe as for normal drainage and put the screw-lid on the hole to keep mosquitos from breeding and cats and small critters from falling in. When I'm ready to water, we lower our little pump in and connect it to the hose and water away. It seems to take about 100 gallons to water my garden each time. We completely emptied both tanks early last week and I've had to water with City water twice. Our water is pretty expensive because whatever we use also increases our sewage bill. We got a little rain yesterday morning and that gave us only about 5" of water in each tank. But it's better than nothing! I'm grateful for whatever, and also for the break in the heat. I was beginning to worry that I was going to lose my garden. I did lose my Nanking Cherry bushes, both of them. When I replace them, I guess I'll plant them where they will get partial shade, rather than full sun. I have been getting cardboard every chance I get. For some reason I'm unable to get it from my neighborhood furniture store any more, but I've found another furniture store that gets deliveries every day. DH goes right by there on the way home from his work-out at the hospital fitness center, so he's started stopping in and getting some on his way home. I really like the cardboard from recliners. It's heavy and just the right size to fit between my raised beds. Since it's in such big pieces, it doesn't blow around as much or have to be weighted down as much as the smaller pieces did. I got some old hay from a little old lady friend of mine who had it in her loafing shed and hasn't kept cattle for the last ten years, so it's that old. But it's good for mulch. I've also used up every single bag of leaves that I collected last fall. Some of you will remember probably that I went around my neighborhood looking for bags of leaves being left on the curb. I tried to go to the door and ask if I could have them, but most of the time no one was home, in which case I just threw them in the back of my pick-up, drove them to my back yard and threw the bags under my big back porch. We got really lucky and found a hardly used Troy Bilt chipper/shredder at a garage sale last weekend, for half what they sell for at Lowe's. We started it up and it only took one yank to get it going. It's overkill for leaves, I know, but it'll be nice for all those hollyhock and sunflower stalks and for next time we trim the privet hedge. I find that my raised beds are not such a good thing when the weather is dry, as they drain TOO well. But I am mulching heavily and hoping for the best. And I do agree with Dawn that it's wise to plant things that will take the heat and the dry. I have found that sunflowers, zinnias and hollyhocks will grow well in my conditions without much care at all. Sorry this is so long! --Ilene