Thanks for the kind words, B&C. In Mississippi, Memorial day would be a good target date for repotting the fig. Hibiscus need an annual repot. Do that toward the end of March, before it starts growing in earnest. Apple and most deciduous trees should be repotted just before or at the onset of spring budswell. Cactus - ask the cactus experts at the cacti/succulents forum. Desert rose - in Mississippi - June Umbrella plant - June There are ways to mechanically limit the amount of perched water a planting will hold, even if you're using a very water-retentive medium. Eliminating all or most of the perched water allows the grower to use media that would otherwise be or border on the edge of unusable. This outlines ways to cope with heavy (water-retentive) media Another effective way of dealing with media that hold too much water is through the use of ballast. You can read more about that technique here: Ballast ..... For now, checking your planting's moisture level regularly with a 'tell' will make a difference in your plant's appearance and level of vitality. Here's something I wrote about that: Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support good root health, which is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to a build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al

Vitex grows well enough here in the SF Bay Area, but has never been all that popular of a shrub on the bay side of the hills. It tends to be a lot more popular where one gets hot summers and cold winters. In fact, I would say it is probably more popularly seen in places like Palm Springs or Arizona than here. There are a few wholesale nurseries that do grow Vitex, but not the cultivars you mention. Mail order will probably be the best source. Just as an aside, not all natives are deer proof, and alot of the Ceanothus in particular are deer food. You might also consider some of the South African succulents; both drought tolerant and often deer proof. Cotyledon orbiculata in particular, and also many of the Aloes, although they will sometimes eat the flowers off Aloes. You might get good information on most deer resistant and drought tolerant natives to select from at the natives nursery at Tilden Park. This is close enough to you that the deer resistance of particular plants would be meaningful...

Daseyduckworth, Have you seen the new post above shouting?? If you read through my many THOUSANDS of posts here in herbs, gardeningm fruit trees, alliums, and in the now very active Harvest forum, you will soon realize that frustratiion and continual repetion can get to anyone, no matter what they are on to help calm them down. Today, from 11am until now, I have been just here, and the Harvest forum, emptying my poor overtaxed 63 year old brain over and over again. Thats still a whole day, that I don't feel as totally wasted effort or negative input. But if you feel that I am way too angry and wish to chastize me, go right ahead. I made mention to the term 'Spoon Fed' recently, which was never originally stated by me, but was a quote from me to another person under teh am context. Another recent poster had made that remark in my defense that a big trend towards continual, and almost daily repeated questions seem to be coming here. We all get hot under the coller and some more than others. If we were kids in school trying to learn by jusy sitting there waiting for us to be told what to do, do you think the teachers would want to pull a single student aside and try and cram more knowledge into a single brain. Not today, its just too much for the lowly teacher, unless they have the time, energy, and prolonged patience. I have nearly none left at times, and with definate renal failure ever closer, and no other medical direction to turn for help, I find that sometimes people DO want to be spoon fed and simply do not know to do a few seconds of simple research. US health care here is Medicare, and inappropriatly named that, as it should be called MEDIKILL. Insurance companies now control the doctors, and dictate what we are allowed to take as treatments, as opposed to our trust in a doctors knowledge and decisions. 22 medications per day, and triple the amounts of insulin are in my future now. The insurance company said I can't have more, the doctors say yes I need more. Who wins? Its surely not me... Another typical example of person asking for an item they have not been able to find and source to buy from in Canada.. I posted a direct link to a company that sells that same exact item in small bulk sizes, but at a little higher cost of a tiny little box. I dont make the prices and shipping/tax, the sellers do. I get back a very negative overtone reply about its just too expensive to buy a tiny little amount to be used in home canning, and have to pay extra for S&H...! If your doing ONE SINGLE home canning project, then YES, but if your planning on doing a LOT, and for YEARS, and NEED this very necessary item, and you dispute and shoot down the original, thoughtful,and helpful person who is just TRYING THEIR BEST to help others. My 'terse' reply to that was, you can buy it anywhere you like at any price only you want to pay, I only offered a SUGGESTION.. A SUGGESTION of a source in MY USA, where they sell it in a little larger bulk amount at a LOT cheaper overall cost but you still pay a bit more for it Canada. That same, (now a complainer) has been lamenting about not finding it anywhere, and has been shot down by every single place they look at. I do LOTS of stuff in a big way. If I need supplies that are not perishable, I buy a LOT, because I use a lot, I hate to run out. Frugality only goes so far, and if an herb or seed needs to be located, I try to provide MY favorite SUGGESTION, again, SUGGESTION about where to find something. The word SEARCH is VERY powerful now with a World Wide Computer linked network. 20 years ago, you had to resort to phones, letters, and phone books, or word of mouth, begging, and futility. Say I wanted a big amount of Angel food cake mix for making them anytime, and one that has no sugar added, I would do a SEARCH first, before asking a very broad based and quite common question on a forum that has many many mismatched people, subjects, and virtually, no way to combine informaton that can be put in a few simple words. A tiny little bit of xtra effort by the questioner, saves a lot of extra energy for others, if most of the info is already published publicly, and is easily found even here, even with a terrible Search feature that pulls up way too much for a quick reading. I think that about 85% of the people who use computers to find information don't really know how or where to search for ANYTHING. Every single web browser today offers very powerful search tools. One recent situation I needed a specially made specific electronic component recently (among my MANY hobbies and other interests). Went on the internet and spent two days with hundreds of possible sources, with no luck. I simply did a tiny bit more digging only to find that part is obsolete and now renumbered/renamed. I still needed it, but now, its only available and sold in England, not here. I paid extra, nearly TWICE the cost of each component, just to get 4 of these little parts, averaging price of .79 cents for 10,000 quantity, or $12.00 EACH for 1-10 pieces. Do the math, and obvously a 10,000 pc. quantity is way too many for my needs, but I must bite the bullet and pay dearly at a much higher, inflated cost for only what need. A final 'and not so winded' note, an 'herb forum', is a place to find herb info, but just asking a simple repeated question is going to get to a few people if the members here read the same thing over and over every day.. Doesn't ever use anyone use a scroll button or a mouse, or even know what they do? Oddly, I found me feet here in about 5 minutes of speed reading a few hundred posts!

They are readily available here in the San Francisco Bay Area, where they thrive as landscape plants in our cool, maritime mediterranean climate. The plants can take winter cold, but should be tipped on their side in winter if left out unprotected, as they do not get lots of precipitation in winter in habitat, as Lesotho is a summer rainfall climate. The other key growing concern is that as a container plant, the roots do not like to get hot or dry, and black plastic nursery pots can cook the roots in summer. It is probably best to grow them in glazed ceramic or wood containers, to keep the roots cooler. A fantastically beautiful Aloe species that can certainly handle the cold of a Seattle winter, but will need careful management to avoid rotting out from too much winter rains. Also remember that this grows at altitude, with summer thundershowers, and will not like it hot and dry in summer. I'd suggest that growing it as a container plant with a cactus mix soil and time release fertilizer in an acidic mix, and keeping it cool and out of the rain in winter is best. The roots on this are extensive, so I would also suggest not trying to keep it in too small a pot as it gets bigger, especially when it can get almost 2.5 feet across when mature. If you are down here in the San Francisco Bay Area, this plant is regularly available as one or five gallon sized plants at either The Dry Garden Nursery in Oakland on Shattuck Ave, or at Flora Grub Nursery in San Francisco in the Bayview District. There is also a grower in Santa Cruz who first made this locally available in California, as he was the first to have local seed, and does ship mail order if I am not mistaken. In any case, this Aloe is still abit pricey, and 1 gallon sized plants will be $25 to $45 retail, but good sized and filling the pot. A 5 gallon plant can cost about $100. Still, these local prices will be cheaper than buying a small 2"/4" from Plant Delights Nursery and shipping to Washington state, especially if you will be coming to the SF Bay Area anyway...