Unlike most trees, it does not hurt to plant fig trees an inch or 2 below the soil surface. The part that is planted below will just sprout more roots. Most trees do not do this and suffer disease and may be killed. And yes, if you regularly irrigate your entire yard (more than 1 inch of surface water) it could cause the "bathtub effect". However, since I use to live in west Texas and by the look of the pictures, I am assuming you are not regularly irrigating your yard. If you are watering to keep the yard alive, it will not be enough water to cause the bathtub effect. If it were mine I would amend the soil in a 4 foot area to cover the root ball and mulch on top of that. I had a fig tree in a dry area with clay and it did not grow much at all for 4 or 5 years. I finally mulched it with about 3 to 4 inches of pine bark and added a little fertilizer last year and It grew and even made figs. Do not fertilize too much or it will go vegetative and grow but not produce.

Interesting that two directors are born on the same day, makes you almost believe in astrology.

I think it's being thrown at the wolves, we call it in our business. Dick Van Dyke One day in '61, I was looking in the Santa Monica phone book for a number, and there it was: Stan Laurel, Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. I went over there and spent the afternoon with them. And pumped him with questions. I must have driven him crazy. I spent a lot of happy hours at Stan's house on Sundays just talking about comedy. Dick Van Dyke No, I did night clubs right here in Los Angeles. My partner, Phil Erickson, put me in the business, a guy from my home town, a dear friend who we just lost a couple of months ago. Dick Van Dyke I'm really in retirement. My career is over. I'm just playing now and having a great time. I like to keep busy, and I'm doing what's fun for me. Dick Van Dyke Pandering to the scandal hungry public is a total lack of responsible journalism. Dick Van Dyke I've retired so many times now it's getting to be a habit. Dick Van Dyke When I was a kid, I had ambitions for being a television announcer, which was before television took off, you know, in the late '40s. And just through necessity, going out looking for work, I was starting to sing, and dance, and act, and I never expected to do that, nor to have any success at it at least. Dick Van Dyke I have a lot of friends who say that one of the freedoms of being older is you don't care what other people think, which I don't think is right. You care what other people think, but if you're comfortable in your own skin, that doesn't bother you. Dick Van Dyke I was a 'Laurel and Hardy' nut. I got to know Laurel at the end of his life, and it was a great thrill for me. He left me his bow tie and derby and told me that if they ever made a movie about him, he'd want me to play him. Dick Van Dyke L I went from my mother to my wife. And to this day, I can't bear to be alone. Dick Van Dyke I'm always announcing my retirement. I'm still not retired. Dick Van Dyke Bob Hope, like Mark Twain, had a sense of humor that was uniquely American, and like Twain, we'll likely not see another like him. Dick Van Dyke So at 16 I got a job at the local radio station. And I was working after school and weekends. I did the news; I did everything. I did - played records. Dick Van Dyke I've always wanted to learn kick boxing. Dick Van Dyke Today, if you're not an alcoholic, you're nobody. Dick Van Dyke I think the saddest moment in my life just happened two months ago. My old nightclub partner passed away, Phil Erickson down in Atlanta. He - I owe him everything. He put me in the business and taught me about everything I know. Dick Van Dyke No, no, it was the relationships. That was that group. People believed that Rob and Laura were really married in real life. You know, a lot of people believed that. Dick Van Dyke Oh, I had an idea for a pilot of my own at the time, and then Carl sent me about eight scripts and simply I threw my idea out the window because the writing was just so good. Dick Van Dyke We had all week to rehearse. An audience would come in at the end of the week and we'd our little show. Most of the ad- libbing happened during the week on the show. Dick Van Dyke I can't work with my brother without laughing. Dick Van Dyke I asked Fred Astaire once when he was about my age if he still danced, and he said 'Yes, but it hurts now.' That's exactly it. I can still dance, too, but it hurts now! Dick Van Dyke Somebody asked what I wanted on my gravestone. I'm just going to put: 'Glad I Could Help.' Dick Van Dyke I think, the 'Van Dyke Show' and 'Mary Poppins' are two of the best periods of my life. I had so much fun, I didn't want it to end. Dick Van Dyke Put me on solid ground and I'll start tapping! At my age they say to keep moving. Dick Van Dyke When I was a kid, I loved all the silent comedians - Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Chaplin. And I used to imitate them. I'd go to see a Buster Keaton movie and come home and try things out I'd seen. I learned to do pratfalls when I was very young. Dick Van Dyke I love musicals, but I find it's just so deadening. You know, 30 takes, you do a little piece here and a little piece there. There's hours and hours of waiting. And to me, that's as far away from real performance as you can get. Dick Van Dyke The years have been just full of surprises for me, and a lot of fun. Dick Van Dyke But once we got on the air, everybody except Morey Amsterdam pretty much stuck to the script. Dick Van Dyke I don't think we've got much of a chance to tell you the truth. But our main problem is our audience skews a little older than most shows, and I don't think our people can stay up that late. I certainly can't. Dick Van Dyke Probably one of the happiest moments, outside the birth of all of my kids, was the first time we won an Emmy, that the show won an Emmy. That was a big night. Dick Van Dyke So I think we're kind of an alternate choice for people who have had it with sex and violence. Dick Van Dyke I have four kids, seven grandkids, and four great-grandkids. Maybe I can become a great-great-grandfather if I hang on! Dick Van Dyke They did ask me to do 'Dancing With The Stars;' I said I can do one show, but on that show you have to come up with a new number every week, and I told them that I think I'm a little past that stage. Dick Van Dyke I sing and dance. That's my job. Dick Van Dyke All of us involved say 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' was the best five years of our lives. We were like otters at play. Dick Van Dyke There's a lot of very funny people I'd love to work with that I've never met, of course. I love Steve Martin and Jim Carrey. Dick Van Dyke Jon Stewart kills me. I love him. And Bill Maher. He does an hour on HBO. But entirely political. It is awfully rough, but he does make me laugh. Dick Van Dyke It's more in my nature to be optimistic, I think. I'm one of those people who gets up on the right side of the bed in the morning. Dick Van Dyke I have a beautiful, young wife who sings and dances, so there's a lot of duetting going on at my house. Dick Van Dyke Once you're dead, your worries are over. Dick Van Dyke Working with my son was like falling off a log. I had so much fun doing it. Dick Van Dyke The thing I'm most proud of is my family, the way they've turned out. Dick Van Dyke I'm kind of proud of being a love child. Dick Van Dyke My wife didn't like Hollywood or its stars, but she made an exception when, in 1972, we were invited to dinner - cooked by Frank Sinatra. Dick Van Dyke When I was a kid, I had ambitions for being a television announcer, which was before television took off, you know, in the late '40s. Dick Van Dyke I'm an old, white-haired guy. If I'm not recognized, I'm treated pretty much like every other elderly. But if people recognize me, it's a whole different thing. Dick Van Dyke I learned everything that I know about comedy and about show business and a lot about life from Carl. Dick Van Dyke A lot of violence, a lot of gore in it, and I just didn't want to do that kind of thing. Dick Van Dyke I cannot tell you what it means when children recognize. This is about the third generation for me. And when kids that small recognize me, it really pleases me, very gratifying. Dick Van Dyke I don't have any children; I have four middle-aged people. Dick Van Dyke I grew up in Danville, Illinois, right in the middle of the state. Dick Van Dyke I have four children and I have seven grandkids. Dick Van Dyke I loved to fall down. Dick Van Dyke I never made a good movie. Dick Van Dyke I think most people will tell you that. They can go along and, while they're denying that they are addicted, say it's stress this, it's this, it's that. But I - it's - I think - I really believe there is a gene. Some people become addicted and others don't. Dick Van Dyke I turned down some movies that were quite good. mainly on the basis of taste. Dick Van Dyke I wanted to be a radio announcer. Dick Van Dyke I was always in show business but in many ways was not really of show business. I didn't move in show business circles, particularly, still don't do it. Dick Van Dyke My kids are so much better parent than I was. Dick Van Dyke My son Barry, of course, has been on from the beginning. And his son Shane is playing now a med student regularly on the show. And at one point or another, I've had all four of his kids on the show. Dick Van Dyke Oh, well, my first love is comedy or singing and dancing. Dick Van Dyke So as my kids will tell you, they had a pretty normal life. Dick Van Dyke Stan said he used to keep Hardy late, make him miss his golf game, and really get him mad. Dick Van Dyke You know, I'm almost out of the habit of watching episodic television now. Dick Van Dyke I like 'The Office.' I particularly like the British version with Ricky Gervais. Of course, I liked the 'Seinfeld' show a lot. I thought that was an awfully good show. Dick Van Dyke I did a 'Golden Girls' once, which shot in front of an audience, and that went well. I had a good time. But I need an audience, for comedy at least. Dick Van Dyke When I started having kids, I thought, 'I don't want to do anything they can't watch.' Dick Van Dyke I've had a lot of writers, in particular, who said they got into writing because of the 'Van Dyke Show.' They said it looked like fun. Dick Van Dyke I played a killer twice. Once on 'Matlock,' on Andy Griffith's show, I got to play the killer. Dick Van Dyke I've won several Emmys, a Tony and a Grammy, so maybe somebody will let me have an Oscar, and then I'll have a full set. Dick Van Dyke My favorite unknown movie is 'The Comic.' Dick Van Dyke I was the worst game show host that ever lived, and I knew it. Dick Van Dyke When I auditioned for 'Bye Bye Birdie' on Broadway, Gower Champion said, 'You've got the job!' I said, 'Mr. Champion, I can't dance.' He said, 'We'll teach you what you need to know.' Dick Van Dyke I do miss the rhythms of comedy. And I've never been able to perform very well without an audience. The sitcoms I've done had them. It was like doing a little play. Dick Van Dyke Rob Petrie is who I really am - in personality and general ineffectiveness. Dick Van Dyke I worked nightclubs all through my 20s, and I was a teetotaler. Dick Van Dyke When I get some budding young comic who'll come up to me and say, 'What was it like to do it in those days?' I try to be as gracious to him as Stan Laurel was to me. Dick Van Dyke Do you know that I was the anchor on the 'CBS Morning Show?' And my newsman was Walter Cronkite. Dick Van Dyke I watch 'Al Jazeera.' They have news that you can't find anywhere else. They do great documentaries, too. Dick Van Dyke I get little kids who recognize me from 'Mary Poppins,' and it just delights me because it's our third generation. Dick Van Dyke I don't play golf. I have more fun singing and dancing. Dick Van Dyke My wife, as proud as she was of me, hated show business for good reasons. There was something about the spouse always being pushed out of the way, shoved aside. She wanted to get away from it. Dick Van Dyke I got into a Broadway show before I ever sang and danced. I learned how after I got in the show. Dick Van Dyke I married somebody half my age, and everybody thought I was crazy, but she is just an absolute angel. Dick Van Dyke Emotionally, I'm about 13. Dick Van Dyke My career is over. I'm just playing now and having a great time. I like to keep busy, and I'm doing what's fun for me. Dick Van Dyke In the best of all worlds, the producers would take some responsibility for the kinds of things they're putting out. Unfortunately, they don't. Dick Van Dyke I didn't even start dancing until I was in my thirties, and it was like flying. Dick Van Dyke Everyone should dance. And everyone should sing. People say, 'Well, I can't sing.' Everybody can sing. That you do it badly is no reason not to sing. Dick Van Dyke A lot of actors seem to dislike typecasting these days. The funny thing is, that's a fairly recent development. It used to be that actors wanted to be typecast so audiences could remember them and identify with them. Dick Van Dyke I cannot live alone. Dick Van Dyke All that nipping and tucking doesn't make you look younger - only stranger. Dick Van Dyke If I'd known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself. Dick Van Dyke Unfortunately, the spouses of performers have a terrible, terrible life. They get shunted aside, pushed aside, ignored. Dick Van Dyke I'm a very neat person. Dick Van Dyke My memory's not too good. Dick Van Dyke I'm the Steven Spielberg of Malibu. Dick Van Dyke I swim, go to the gym, and do a little dancing every day and a little singing. Dick Van Dyke I never had a lot of confidence in myself. Dick Van Dyke I don't think parents can protect their kids in this media-nut culture. Dick Van Dyke There are no more Walt Disneys anymore. Dick Van Dyke Dick Martin was a good buddy, and he was always a lot of fun to have around. Dick Van Dyke I've always thought if I could pick my interviewer, it'd be Charlie Rose, who I think is the best. Dick Van Dyke I'm not cantankerous. Dick Van Dyke I was born in the Coolidge administration. Can you believe that? So I've seen a lot of politics. Dick Van Dyke My father made about $25 a week. We always lived just on the edge. Dick Van Dyke The first time I met Mary Tyler Moore, I thought she was just beautiful, but I thought she was a little young. Dick Van Dyke That rule about having to act one's age? I just don't buy it. Dick Van Dyke Every morning I have something to do, I'm better off. It's bad to get up and not have something to do. Dick Van Dyke My maternal grandfather owned a grocery store that also sold kosher meat. He did well. Dick Van Dyke I love to harmonize. Dick Van Dyke It's quite hard to act yourself all the time. Dick Van Dyke I'm crazy about Judi Dench. Dick Van Dyke

William Collins Quotes English - Poet December 25, 1721 - June 12, 1759 When a writer becomes a reader of his or her own work, a lot can go wrong. It's like do-it-yourself dentistry. William Collins By fairy hands their knell is rung; By forms unseen their dirge is sung. William Collins Always mistrust a subordinate who never finds fault with his superior. William Collins I think humor is a very serious thing. I use it as a way of weakening the reader's defenses so that I can more easily take him to something more. William Collins How sleep the brave, who sink to rest, By all their country's wishes blest! William Collins In numbers warmly pure and sweetly strong. William Collins Beloved, till life can charm no more; And mourned, till Pity's self be dead. William Collins Words like feminism or democracy scare me. They are words with barnacles on them, and you can't see what's underneath. William Collins Prior to Wordsworth, humor was an essential part of poetry. I mean, they don't call them Shakespeare comedies for nothing. William Collins Clara Barton Quotes American - Public Servant December 25, 1821 - April 12, 1912 I may be compelled to face danger, but never fear it, and while our soldiers can stand and fight, I can stand and feed and nurse them. Clara Barton This conflict is one thing I've been waiting for. I'm well and strong and young - young enough to go to the front. If I can't be a soldier, I'll help soldiers. Clara Barton I may sometimes be willing to teach for nothing, but if paid at all, I shall never do a man's work for less than a man's pay. Clara Barton The surest test of discipline is its absence. Clara Barton I have an almost complete disregard of precedent, and a faith in the possibility of something better. It irritates me to be told how things have always been done. I defy the tyranny of precedent. I go for anything new that might improve the past. Clara Barton Everybody's business is nobody's business, and nobody's business is my business. Clara Barton An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness. Clara Barton A ball had passed between my body and the right arm which supported him, cutting through the sleeve and passing through his chest from shoulder to shoulder. There was no more to be done for him and I left him to his rest. I have never mended that hole in my sleeve. Clara Barton I wonder if a soldier ever does mend a bullet hole in his coat? Clara Barton The patriot blood of my father was warm in my veins. Clara Barton Economy, prudence, and a simple life are the sure masters of need, and will often accomplish that which, their opposites, with a fortune at hand, will fail to do. Clara Barton Cab Calloway Quotes American - Musician December 25, 1907 - November 18, 1994 90%, 100% are going there to hear the singing. The story is another thing. Nobody's interested in the story. Happiness is happiness. Cab Calloway Everybody that you could name would join in our audiences from, Laguardia on down. Everybody came. Everybody came to the Cotton Club. Cab Calloway My audience was my life. What I did and how I did it, was all for my audience. Cab Calloway It's very difficult to photograph an opera. And they messed up on it. It just wasn't there. And I don't blame the Gershwins for taking it away. Of course, if they had gotten the original company to have done it, it would have been very good. Cab Calloway Bubbles was a very good dancer. Tremendous dancer. He was one of our leading dancers of the country at that time. And, of course, he didn't have much of a voice. Cab Calloway You don't think it was because a white man wrote it, a black man wrote it, a green man wrote it. What - doesn't make a difference! Doesn't make a difference. I think he did a good job. Cab Calloway We didn't have any segregation at the Cotton Club. No. The Cotton Club was wide open, it was free. Cab Calloway We usually never got out of there before four or five o'clock in the morning. Every morning. So it was rough. Cab Calloway A movie and a stage show are two entirely different things. A picture, you can do anything you want. Change it, cut out a scene, put in a scene, take a scene out. They don't do that on stage. Cab Calloway At times as a performer they segregated us in some of theatres. Cab Calloway He was a silly guy. Out - do the other guy. That was his effort at all times. Cab Calloway Everybody did something. It was very entertaining. We had a lot of fun. Lot of fun. And there was no segregation, that I could see. I never saw any. Cab Calloway That's what George wrote! He wrote it. Why change it? There was this European company that I was speaking about awhile ago - course, didn't nobody know what Porgy was. Cab Calloway I think it was just an opera. Now, you go to opera, you expect to see and hear what the opera is. So, it was Catfish Row. It was singers. Marvelous voices. It didn't make no difference what color they were. Cab Calloway The only credit I can give them. They synchronize wonderful. That's all. They synchronize very - you would have thought that they were actually acting, but they were synching all the time, and that's a rough job. Cab Calloway What opera isn't violent? Two things happen, violence and love. And other than that, name something else. You can't. Cab Calloway Quentin Crisp Quotes English - Writer December 25, 1908 - November 21, 1999 If at first you don't succeed, failure may be your style. Quentin Crisp The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency. Quentin Crisp My mother protected me from the world and my father threatened me with it. Quentin Crisp I recommend limiting one's involvement in other people's lives to a pleasantly scant minimum. Quentin Crisp It is explained that all relationships require a little give and take. This is untrue. Any partnership demands that we give and give and give and at the last, as we flop into our graves exhausted, we are told that we didn't give enough. Quentin Crisp When I told the people of Northern Ireland that I was an atheist, a woman in the audience stood up and said, 'Yes, but is it the God of the Catholics or the God of the Protestants in whom you don't believe? Quentin Crisp To know all is not to forgive all. It is to despise everybody. Quentin Crisp Love is not enough. It must be the foundation, the cornerstone - but not the complete structure. It is much too pliable, too yielding. Quentin Crisp It's no good running a pig farm badly for 30 years while saying, 'Really, I was meant to be a ballet dancer.' By then, pigs will be your style. Quentin Crisp The law is simply expediency wearing a long white dress. Quentin Crisp The trouble with children is that they're not returnable. Quentin Crisp Life was a funny thing that happened to me on the way to the grave. Quentin Crisp There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse. Quentin Crisp It is not the simple statement of facts that ushers in freedom; it is the constant repetition of them that has this liberating effect. Tolerance is the result not of enlightenment, but of boredom. Quentin Crisp The young always have the same problem - how to rebel and conform at the same time. They have now solved this by defying their parents and copying one another. Quentin Crisp The formula for achieving a successful relationship is simple: you should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster. Quentin Crisp Manners are love in a cool climate. Quentin Crisp You fall out of your mother's womb, you crawl across open country under fire, and drop into your grave. Quentin Crisp Nothing shortens a journey so pleasantly as an account of misfortunes at which the hearer is permitted to laugh. Quentin Crisp The very purpose of existence is to reconcile the glowing opinion we hold of ourselves with the appalling things that other people think about us. Quentin Crisp For an introvert his environment is himself and can never be subject to startling or unforeseen change. Quentin Crisp However low a man sinks he never reaches the level of the police. Quentin Crisp Never keep up with the Joneses. Drag them down to your level. Quentin Crisp The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right. Quentin Crisp Health consists of having the same diseases as one's neighbors. Quentin Crisp I simply haven't the nerve to imagine a being, a force, a cause which keeps the planets revolving in their orbits and then suddenly stops in order to give me a bicycle with three speeds. Quentin Crisp Though intelligence is powerless to modify character, it is a dab hand at finding euphemisms for its weaknesses. Quentin Crisp Nothing more rapidly inclines a person to go into a monastery than reading a book on etiquette. There are so many trivial ways in which it is possible to commit some social sin. Quentin Crisp In an expanding universe, time is on the side of the outcast. Those who once inhabited the suburbs of human contempt find that without changing their address they eventually live in the metropolis. Quentin Crisp Euphemisms are unpleasant truths wearing diplomatic cologne. Quentin Crisp Abatement in the hostility of one's enemies must never be thought to signify they have been won over. It only means that one has ceased to constitute a threat. Quentin Crisp Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are. Quentin Crisp Men get laid, but women get screwed. Quentin Crisp There are three reasons for becoming a writer: the first is that you need the money; the second that you have something to say that you think the world should know; the third is that you can't think what to do with the long winter evenings. Quentin Crisp For flavor, instant sex will never supersede the stuff you have to peel and cook. Quentin Crisp An autobiography is an obituary in serial form with the last installment missing. Quentin Crisp Sex is the last refuge of the miserable. Quentin Crisp The poverty from which I have suffered could be diagnosed as 'Soho' poverty. It comes from having the airs and graces of a genius and no talent. Quentin Crisp Decency must be an even more exhausting state to maintain than its opposite. Those who succeed seem to need a stupefying amount of sleep. Quentin Crisp Vice is its own reward. It is virtue which, if it is to be marketed with consumer appeal, must carry Green Shield stamps. Quentin Crisp Living en famille provides the strongest motives for rudeness combined with the maximum opportunity for displaying it. Quentin Crisp Is not the whole world a vast house of assignation of which the filing system has been lost? Quentin Crisp