Hi Rich, Nice trees. I don't know anything about pruning trees in your zone, but someone up there will. It's breba figs that form on last year's wood and they pop out on the branches, but with no leaves. That's how you can tell they are brebas. The main crops form at the leaf joints on the current year's growth. Good luck with your trees, noss

I've had some fungus/damping off/rotting problems with my 2nd stage potting up in the past -- not always -- but sometimes. But I've fixed that problem. Now I water with a slightly diluted Chamomile tea solution, and it works like a charm. No more rotting stems! Black tea also works, but not green. It's something in the tea that kills off any kind of fungal growth. I also add a half strength "baby" tomato food to the water so they have immediate "food". I use only half strength so I don't risk burning the plant. Plus there's fertilizer in the potting mix, so I don't want to over do it. So I just put enough in the water to tide them over until the roots develop enough to take what they need out of the soil. MacThayer

Hello, Question #2 I have two bare root, no roots, Agave I need to pot and grow out. I have never done it this late. Should I keep then in the shade or morning sun? Normally, I do this in early spring, in an east window, keeping them fairly dry, but not dry like a Gasteria. This summer I have been rooting all my succulents from Aloe to Crassula to Senecio to Aptenia to Adromischus in 100% mixed aggregate - 85:15% Bark sitting in tray of water. Acutally I am growing 1/3 of my succulents this way this summer. I'm currently rooting & seeding all the rest of my plants in either 100% perlite or 80:20% black pumice (scoria) These plants are toys, easy break, repair or replace. The Agave are not toys. They are pets, neglected, but still alive and mostly happy. Question # 1 I got his Agave free in spring 2017, looking sad By winter/early spring 2018, he was growing great, wonderful colour. Based on the growth in the last three years, it will be wider than tall. There is a semi-local grower that many around get Agave. He carries many of the same varieties over the years and keeps pictures of all of them on his website. Based on that I think it might be a A. bovicornuta. Online source say it will get 3'. That is ideal conditions, in the ground. In Victoria and in a pot, I except he will stay below 2'. I hope. (When we moved here, my Yucca aliofolia, Spike took off like a weed. He is now over 8'. In too small of a pot and no one is willing to get close enough to do it. It's sad to see Spike unhappy, after 20 years babying him from an offset I dug in my friends yard on Tybee Island Georgia.) Do you think the terracotta saucer pot is deep enough for a couple years. The blue pot, I could not get to the soil to water it. It has one of those useless attached saucer, so watering from below was also out of the question. I will be washing most or all of the soil off the roots before potting it. Because he is moving into a much coarser mix of pumice, perlite, black pumice & bark. Currently he is in a peat, sand, perlite blend. I know he will reach the edge in a year, but I plan to water from below, so I can still water it.

You're welcome. I have 4 raised gus beds. One is 6x8, one is 4x10, and 2 are 4x8. I have 2 rows in each bed. Your plants look healthy and appear to have nice, thick fern growth so I wouldn't worry that you harvested too much this spring. I haven't picked off seeds for several years. You can pick them after they turn red and then plant them somewhere if you want to start another bed. They take several years to grow out from seed before you can harvest. I've saved seeds once and grew them indoors starting in January and then gave the seedlings to a neighbor to plant. I find that only a small fraction of the seeds will sprout the next year so I just yank out any seedling that is growing to close to an existing crown. The crowns do spread fairly slowly. Did you plant one row or 2 in that bed. If you planted 2 rows then it should fill in most of the bed in 5-7 years. If you only planted one row then it may take a decade or more to fill in the whole bed.