Exactly! It's a process called "bare-rooting," where you remove as much of the old, compacted soil as possible. Often, you'll prune some of the larger, circling, or very woody roots. You might need to soak the root-ball in water to get the old soil off. While you work, it is good to have a helper handy, to mist the root-ball while it is exposed. Fine root-hairs will die quickly, so you want to have your materials ready to go. When you re-pot, you want to carefully tuck the new mix around all of the roots. I use a smooth chop-stick for this, and I work slowly. I also water the mix as I fill the pot, checking for open pockets beneath the root-ball. After re-potting, leave the trees in a SHADY location for 1 - 3 weeks, depending upon how shocked they are. When they begin to show new growth, gradually introduce them to more sun. Light coming through a window does not compare to true, outdoor light. Nutrients such as you'd find in a box of Miracle Grow. Or Osmocote. Or Foliage Pro by DynaGrow (my preference). Josh

Impatience, They still do that here! Last night, our county deputies and other storm spotters were out spotting storms. The one closest to us was on a bridge about a mile from our house as the crow flies. I was glad knowing he was there since it is on much higher ground than we are and I knew he'd see the tornadoes before we did. And he did, too, so we had advance warning to stop staring at the sky and get into the shelter. They do not necessarily drive around with their sirens on alerting people in our county depending on where the storms are because Thackerville, Marietta, Shady Dale and Greenville, I think, all have storm sirens that the firefighters sound when a tornado is spotted near them or is known to be moving towards them. Out in less populated areas, some of the firefighters do drive around in the firetrucks sometimes sounding their sirens to alert folks. Leava, I'm glad to hear you and Jeff are alright and the storm missed y'all. We were really worried about you last night as the storms sounded too close to yall for comfort. I would have been worried about you, Miraje, but I knew you were chasing the storms while the rest of us were running from them. I am glad they missed your home. Suzie, I was nervous on your behalf, just hoping you made it home from work before it got to your place. I knew you had a shelter and would be in it if you got home before the storm arrived, so I'm glad you left work early. Down here, the Ardmore schools let the kids out at 1 p.m., so I knew that folks in Carter County were indeed watching the skies and taking the storms seriously. Apparently a lot of schools around the state did that too, and I think it is a smart move. I'm hoping they find the 3-year-old alive too even though I know the odds are against it. Last night many of Tim's and Chris's coworkers from the D-FW metro area were calling and texting us and checking on us throughout the storms. Ironically, after we were in the clear here, the D-FW metro area was hit by much worse storms that we had here in Love County, and some of those co-workers had much more storm damage than we did. Dawn

Heather, Hey, welcome back and congratulations on the birth of your child. I hope y'all are doing well. I am glad your husband didn't get flipped, rolled and injured like some of the guys on The Great Tornado Hunt team. I was watching TWC when all that was happening in real time and it was scary, especially when you looked at the storm chaser map and there were several dozen right there in that area. It is amazing only a few chasers got hit hard enough to damage their vehicles. Reed, Y'all got out of town in the nick of time. By the time y'all were driving through southern OK, the highways in central OK were in total gridlock. Dorothy, You'll never regret putting in a storm cellar. Even though there are some years we don't go to it at all (yay!), this year I have been in it several times. I don't think we've ever had as many tornado warnings in our county as we've had in 2013. Just having the shelter gives me peace of mind when the weather is severe. Everyone in our family has weather aps on our phones and we get warnings. I like that, although it must have been a shock when your phone woke you up since you didn't know that ap had been installed. Our May rainfall was almost identical to yours and most all of it fell in the last 10 or 12 days of the month. Our mesonet station got 4" more than us in May, but I wouldn't have wanted 4" more right now because the garden's lower end is too wet as it is now. Paula, Thanks for the update on Seedmama. It is amazing Chandra was watching the weather and aware of all this from so far away. Once someone belongs to this gardening family, though, they belong forever---even when they move half a world away. Bon, In recent years having a storm check-in thread has become pretty much standard procedure. It is impossible to talk to everyone here regularly and not know/care if they are okay when severe weather is occurring. When I am watching storms in other parts of the state, I always am thinking of the forum members who live in that area. It always is such a relief to have everyone check in. That sounds like an amazing storm shelter in terms of size and depth. I have seen one here like that and a couple of years ago they cleaned it up and fixed it up a little so it wouldn't be so icky. It is in a small community in NW Love County and serves as a community shelter. It isn't as deeply underground as yours, but is a nice big size. Sharon, Thanks for the update on Leava. Deb4tune1912, I am tired of this weather too. Maybe things will quiet down now that June is here. It would be perfect if the weather would stay cool and mild so we all can catch our breath, clean up our gardens and just be able to enjoy being outdoors for a few days without having to flee threatening weather. Dawn

I would love to know if I could bake a batch of cookies or sew up some throw pillows, start a thread and show people my great work along with a link to my website. I would not put a price on the items. Just let people know what a great baker or pillow maker I was. If that practice is allowed, then how can we possibly have room for discussions? Mind you I think that would be a pretty lame way of advertising my wares- talk about not using social media properly- no targeting whatsoever. But clearly these people know as much about social media marketing as they do about architecture and design.