Hey folks, Thanks to the advice here, I've recently gone through and barerooted some of my smaller tress that were slowly declining and put them in the 5.1.1. mix and so far everything is looking great. I still have a few more larger trees to go, but I'm not sure how to proceed with them. I have a Persian mulberry that came in the absolute worst compacted soil I've ever seen and it's very problematic for watering. Do mulberry trees take kindly to barerooting and when would be the best time to tackle this? I live in coastal southern Califonia, so we don't get any frost. I know you're not supposed to do this sort of thing during the heat of summer, but most days here are mild and overcast. The other two trees I have are a Longan and a Guamuchil, do these do well with barerooting too? This forum is a wealth of knowledge and has been bringing all my plants back from the dead. Thanks in advance, ~CJ

Thank you Everyone for all of your help!! To answer a few questions: I took my pictures to another nursery and talked to a very nice man who told me exactly what I needed to do. 1) I was overwatering 2) I needed to scrape back the bark to see if the stems on top were alive, and prune down any dead bark 3) He said the white buds on it mean that it IS a fruiting tree. I don't understand why finding a fruiting mulberry would be hard to find or so pricey (we paid $30) with the nursery owner guaranteeing me it was fruiting but that he just couldn't remember the exact name. The Bamboo stake was in the potted mulberry when we bought it. When we dug the hole we just stuck the whole thing in there, mixed in top soil and original soil, the whole fertilizer, weed prevention, root stimulator bit, mulched, guarded, and done. If you think moving it and tying it straight at maybe an angle is better for it I will do that. I was sort of advised that if I wanted a mullbery TREE VS. BUSH I should just cut that stock at the very bottom off anyways, but I'm going to wait for the stems to start blooming because the notion of a mulberry bush seems cool too.... have to decide... plus if the top dies I'd like to revive the bottom and it can grow anew!

From what I've learned rain tends to be on the acidic side. Which normally helps us here where our soils lean to the alkaline side. But with little rain the last two years I had no rain to leach it out. I do try to water less often and deep water when I do. But when the water I'm using is alkaline and then carrying soluble salts and other minerals I'm not gaining much if any by deep soaking. Using sulphur, bone meal and a soil inoculant my PH dropped from a range of 7.5 -7.9 in 08 to 7.2 this last year. I hadn't had a soil test ran in years. My thought has always been that if the plants look healthy and are producing well things have to be ok. I'm not sure even if I had ran the tests they would of showed much till after the first year of the drought. We went 12 months with just over 4 inches of rain. So basically all my watering was from the faucet. Which compounded the problem. I will continue to test every fall till I have it in line. And then I've promised myself to test at least every 2-3 years. But then thought I had better just keep doing it every year. Because if I ever skip a year then I probably won't test again till I see problems. As you garden you will notice problems fairly fast. What takes a year to develop can take several to correct. Although I've always been able to grow most things I've tried here. Blue berries is one plant that like you said would hang on a few years and struggle then just give it up. Now I know why. Like Dawn I've decided at the present I'm not willing to spend the time it would take to try to maintain a PH level to grow them properly. Here the extension service will run I believe two tests a year for you free. Then after that they are like five dollars if you are a Kansas resident. Unless you want a more detailed test then they go up. I think two comprehensive tests this year cost me around $30.00. And normally one would be enough. But I broke a new area and last year was the first year for it. So wanted to test it as I knew there would be a difference between the two and there was. Jay

I don't know about those but I once moved a Chinese Privet and thought for sure I killed it. Once it went limp and started looking bad I made a point of putting a hose near the base and let the water trickle for about an hour or so every evening. I didn't think it would work but figured it couldn't hurt. To my surprise that darn thing bounced back. It couldn't hurt to try it. I think the tree may be in shock and needs a little TLC.