hman, I don't have significant intermixed plantings. I could have nematodes but I have never seen them on trees I have dug up. In the majority of cases I would say there is an obvious disease or pest or light issue; one problem I had a few years ago for example was peach scale, that stunted several trees. My O'Henry for example had bad peach scale. The problem is even though you fix a problem the tree can be in a self-fulfilling path of low growth which it can't just pop out of. There is only one tree that I really don't know why its not growing more, its my Black Boy peach. I think the original cause is it got horrible brown rot two years ago, the kind that is so bad that it kills the small shoots as well, and it is very slowly recovering from that. This year it did much better than last year, no big vigorous shoots but at least some 2' ones. So it may have just been from the rot and its taking its time recovering. If you read all of the old fruit books they refer to the "yellows" on peaches quite frequently, something they thought was a disease of some sort. Today it is not considered a legitimate diagnosis. My view is this "yellows" is just this tendency for peaches to runt out under certain conditions. It often results in leaves that are more yellow. Scott

Looks like the Loyalist had more twist to the leaves the more sun it received. The five hour one seemed fine. I wonder if it will scorch later on in the summer. BTW, 4-6 hours is considered part sun. >6 hours is considered full sun. Steve

Stacy, at first glance, I also thought the sand was actually "Grape Nuts." But I didn't try to eat them because, well, we all know what happened to that 70's health guru Euell Gibbons. He died from a heart attack eating grape nuts. Nope. Just shower me with pork rinds, thankyouverymuch. Wait, I'm confused. Does 'keep your thongs on' mean foot or underwear? Jessica, I can't answer that, on the grounds that it might incriminate me. Why do you ask? Do you feel like baring your sole, or do you feel like baring your "soul?" If it's the latter, could you please be so kind as to give us all a warning? Thank you. ;-Ã Allright my friends, ladies and gentlemen of the hootenanny... I would like to invite you all to join Sharon, Raul and I in Waikinky Island. Note: Please BYOT (Bring your own thongs). Sharon, I luv yew. Sunny Sol

It was very cold, windy and rainy here and I spent a lot of the day getting things re-situated from having the house tented for termite extermination. I don't mind the dead ants and the dead termites but I hate seeing the dead spiders. I did a lot of stair climbing, lifting, twisting and squatting so I got my exercise. Tomorrow I am going back to water aerobics!