I was really hoping for more input from a bunch of people on this subject but it appears it is time to wrap this one up. Since most people don't really want to bother with ever watering their plants, many people go into a garden store and a very rich potting soil that stays soggy all the time. As a result you may eventually kill your plant. Many plant species can literally drown in mucky soil! For some unexplained reason many growers believe the rich soil makes a plant grow better! Typical "potting soils" just don't work for the vast majority of tropical plant species since most grow in trees, not in soggy soil. The roots of many tropical plants are designed to*collect rain water during the wet season and suffer through the dry season. But even in the dry season a specimen can collect enough water from the humidity around their exposed roots to survive. * Although house plant growers commonly believe tropical plants do not need water in winter that belief is simply a myth. Tropical plants live in very humid conditions and are capable of gathering water directly from the air even during the drier portions of the year when it doesn't rain on a daily basis. Dew and fog are very important contributors to the water available to a tropical rain forest plant species and homes don't have dew or fog! If we deny the plant the water they crave they only suffer and will never be able to display their natural beauty. In the temperate rain forest the amount of water available from the dew alone is estimated to be between three to five percent of the total annual precipitation! As a result, your tropical plants need water year round but it is wise to reduce the amount offered during the winter. We water every week of the year averaging four days a week in summer and three days per week in winter. As can be seen in the photo the plants love water. Despite the belief of far too many growers, growing plants is not just about the water content of the soil! The advice to water only once a week and keep the top two inches of the soil dry is not always good advice! Many aroids and other plant species grow in very wet soil! Instead it is about the fast flow of water through the soil or the lack thereof which causes a lack of oxygen, anerobic fermentation and saprophytes which turn into pathogens. Saprophytes are organisms including fungus or bacteria that grow on and draw nourishment from dead or decaying organic matter which often includes soggy wet soil. The pathogens attack the roots and cause them to rot so all of the advice to "slow down on the water" is really about how to control the pathogens. Fermentation and saprophytes often occur in muddy soil that will not not allow the roots to breathe but they don't necessarily occur in water which is why we can cause a plant that is about to die to grow new roots in clean water. As a result, it is necessary to use soil mixes that allow the roots to breathe and will not remain soggy. I've attempted in many threads to explain the necessity of mixing proper soil for plants but the advice is often ignored since it requires some "work" on the part of the plant's keeper. The reason plants rot is not the amount of water given to the plant! These are rain forest plants and are literally drowned for months at a time! If you could visit a rain forest you would quickly learn the soil is composed of leaf litter, decaying wood, compost and the charcoal left behind when a part of the forest burns. If we'll just listen to Mother Nature we can all make our plants grow as they should in nature. That is precisely what I attempt to explain when I recommend mixing soil, not just buying a bag at the store. Over time we've developed a soil mixture for most of our aroid and tropical species. We use this mixture on the advice of the aroid keepers at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis. The goal of this mix is to allow the roots to freely find places to extend and grow without constantly finding wet places where they will rot. This mix will remain damp but drain quickly. Rather than using a rich, soggy soil and watering only once a week (or less), use a soil that holds moisture well but drains quickly. With the help of botanical garden researchers we've developed a soil mixture*for most of our specimens that works great. People who visit our artificial rain forest are often amazed at the size of many of our specimens which grow much faster and larger than they often do in a home. The exact mixture is not critical but we use*roughly 40% potting mix combined with 20% high quality peat moss, 20% orchid potting media containing charcoal, hard wood and gravel), and the balance cypress mulch mixed, with 10% Perlite and finely shredded pieces of sphagnum moss. We often add extra charcoal such as aquarium charcoal or hardwood charcoal to help purify the soil and sometimes volcanic rock If you are concerned about your soil remaining wet just add more orchid mix, cypress mulch, Perlite and sphagnum moss. We grow many different species in this basic mixture and*some of our specimens have reached their adult or near adult size and regularly produce a spathe and spadix (inflorescence). *The goal of*our mixture is to cause the water to flow through the soil quickly, remain slightly damp, but never soggy. The roots of our plants attach to the bark just as they do in nature*on the side of a tree. Most growers call a mix similar to the one we use a "jungle mix". Again, I welcome your input. We also openly invite anyone living or visiting in MidAmerica to visit our private botanical garden. There is never a charge. You can see photos on the homepage of our website.

Dry here in western MD -- not affecting established trees w/deep roots yet, but certainly beginning to affect planted row crops & gardens. I even had alittle frost damage the other morning (thermometer said 34F at eye-level) on the sprout-tips of sensitive, low-hanging stuff like sourwood. Shaping up as perhaps similar to last summer -- cool w/a bit less than avg rain & zero tropical moisture.

Yes, a house is a very powerful concept, and thus, can be so frightening to us, like a house that is uninhabited anymore and is slowly decaying; or a house that feels like it's inhabited by souls of dead; or a house that reminds of a tragedy You know this ghost town, Bodie, in Sierra Nevada? You can go and visit there..had mines, gold and others..was abandoned in thirties, by its population or whatever left of it, rather abruptly. You can still see their school and church and houses, with things covered with years-long dust..Fascinating, yes, but it was extremely gloomy and unsettling ..also high up in the mountains and the sun was setting..very lonely, it felt. The most sad pictures I ever saw on the subject are the Chernobyl and Pripyat ones..the people who lived there were evacuated in the middle of the night..left everything behind. There are still dolls and books and clothes..but everything is empty, everything is poisoned too, no hope for the next hundreds of years..the woods are taking over, the buildings decaying..books and dolls and people's stuff..but no people. I'm especially sensitive to that subject since I was in Kiev at the time of the explosion..I was a young girl so I didn't realize how huge the tragedy is..but oh I remember so very well how the dear lying two faced damn government didn't say anything to their citizen and tried to, you know, sweep everything under the cover as per their custom..we knew the night it happened by a mere chance-my older brother flew from his university to be with us for his spring vacation, and the drive fro the airport to the city is an hour usually..he spent 8 or 9 hours in that taxi because the highway stood, and the cab driver told him "They say Chernobyl station blew up so they send firefighters there and it's a huge mess". So when he was finally home he told us. All the others were told after all the other radio and TV stations in the world caught on it and the government felt already uncomfortable like they should say something too. After they held their First May Parade, exposing thousands upon thousands of people with their kids, lilac blossoming and all, like nothing had ever happened. Then took them two more weeks to decide to evacuate schools. And yes we didn't get it as awful like Pripyat of course but we got it bad. I was sent to my relatives to a different city; they took this geiger counter(had one at work) next to me to see what's going on with my clothes and stuff..well the counter couldn't count because the arrow went off scale. The amount of people with problems that are haunting them since.. Of course whoever was there in the first place putting that fire off-dead, very soon. Goes without saying. It felt differently then I was a little girl. I was too little to really fully get it. I had a longer than usual summer with all sorts of adventures because so many kids were sent away there was not enough space sometimes to fit them all, so everybody got creative..And people as usual battling bad stuff with humor invented tons of dark jokes about radiation, some were actually pretty funny. But now when I see these pictures of city abandoned that people will never come to again, and no prayers will help, it hits me because now I understand. A house is a shelter, materials put together, clay and wood and iron and whatever. Us, people-we are the ones who give it meaning. We make it. We live there. It's alive only and because of us. And that's why this profound feeling of loneliness and sadness and sometimes of a doom when there is a house with no people. And no promise of people. and no hint of a promise.

Ok now I'm really getting confused. There are no indications of frost damage whatsoever in the photos. The plants are clearly anemic. But given the mixed info given there is no sure way to tell why. First, why in zone 5 are these tiny young plants already buried in deep mulch. Far too early as the ground hasn't sufficiently warmed up yet, especially for squash, and cool soil temps can cause nutrient uptake problems. Plus you need to pull the mulch back to a 4-6" circle around the plants until they are well established. All that high carbon mulch is further leaching nitrogen from the plants not to mention encouraging pests. Second, "garden soil enriched with well rotted compost, pure alfalfa pellets, dried chicken feathers and a little lime to counteract our alkaline soil" could easily be NOT "rich" soil since there are minimal if any nutrients in it for the plants. Decomposition takes time - lots of time - and is wholly dependent on soil bacteria activity and soil temps. Third, one should never play around with either lime or sulfa (BIG difference between the two) without absolute knowledge of their soil pH. Doing so only creates further nutrient problems. Fourth, define "well-watered" please. Unfortunately to many new gardeners that often means daily. Which is usually drowning them. IMO your plants need to be UN-mulched for a couple of weeks and fed some form of readily available nutrients and your soil needs to be professionally tested so you know what you are actually working with. Dave