estreya: Your trees look fine. If you can see a little drought stress when you water, you will get better fruit than if you water too much. I see a lot of really drought stressed fruit and pecan trees around here. They have about 1/3 the leaves they should indicating they were stressed from the get go in spring. Also they only put on a couple inches of new growth. When it's even worse than that you get limb dieback. Your trees aren't even in that ballpark. As your trees mature you should be able to cut back water frequency to less than once a week. With deep soil and MM111 rootstock, which is drought tolerant, we can water deeply as little as 2-3 times a yr with only 15 inches rain a yr. The Fruitnut

Phyllostachys Iridescens. Phyllostachys Bambusoides. Phyllostachys vivax.Phyllostachys dulces.Phyllostachys decora . I can't take close up pics, the trees are very tall.

Hi Harry, All my papayas were male, and I had about 6 plants of them. I thought at least one would be female. Talk about bad luck. I am actually not that fond of eating papaya. I gave them all away to someone who already had an established female papaya. Made him happy. But it's fun anyway to grow different tropical plants - it's all one big experiment for me. Tomas Tomas

Jeff: im using AL's mix as well but substituting perlite for crushed granite as i have not been able to find the granite around here. i approximate a third perlite, third pine bark fines and a third turface. for fertilizer i use osmocote slow release and during the spring and summer, i add fish emulsifier. im not sure if the bigger pine bark chunks are ok. i would reach out to al on the container forum. he'll answer you within an hour or two usually. my guess is he is going to say to try and get the pine bark fines if you can. what are you doing with your plants for the winter? were you able to find turface? if yes, where from? ( i had to drive 40 miles to Long Isalnd to get it. to be honest, i am totally flabbergasted by the relative success I have been having, especially as there are some growers with a hundred times more knowledge and experience than me who have not done so well. I really cannot explain it. am thrilled to hear of another NY area tropical fruit grower. please post any pics you have.