So what do you suggest to test the water PH? Should I also check out the water quality report too? Where's the best place to find that out? I went to the water site for my city (Austin, Tx) but I'm not sure if I need to narrow by zip code? Here was the report: Davis WTP Ullrich WTP Parameter Units Method Cd T2,T2H T3 ----------------- ----- --------------- ----------- ----------- pH SU SM 4500-H B AVG 9.7 AVG 9.6 MAX 9.8 MAX 9.8 MIN 9.5 MIN 9.4 Total Alkalinity MG/L SM 2320 B AVG 61 AVG 67 MAX 65 MAX 72 MIN 56 MIN 62 Total Hardness MG/L SM 2340 C AVG 94 AVG 102 MAX 99 MAX 106 MIN 89 MIN 96 Total Solids MG/L SM 2540 B AVG 188 AVG 198 MAX 204 MAX 202 MIN 168 MIN 188 Total Chlorine MG/L SM 4500-CL F AVG 2.93 AVG 2.61 Residual MAX 3.25 MAX 2.80 MIN 2.70 MIN 2.30 Sulfate MG/L SM 4500-SO4 E AVG 36.4 AVG 34.4 MAX 37.5 MAX 34.4 MIN 35.3 MIN 34.4 Total Organic MG/L SM 5310 C AVG 2.70 AVG 2.60 Carbon MAX 2.96 MAX 2.73 MIN 2.45 MIN 2.46 Conductivity UMHOS/cm SM 2510 B AVG 335 AVG 354 MAX 335 MAX 354 MIN 335 MIN 354 Total UG/L EPA 524.3 THM AVG 28.9 AVG 35.9 Trihalomethanes MAX 32.4 MAX 42.9 MIN 24.8 MIN 30.8 Turbidity NTU SM 2130 B AVG 0.06 AVG 0.04 MAX 0.10 MAX 0.06 MIN 0.03 MIN 0.02 Drinking Water Quality Report Date Range: 01-SEP-2013 to 30-SEP-2013 Now what if I repotted plants from soil that had a bunch of fertilizer salts on the top despite not fertilizing? I'm using 5-1-1 mix, should I add dolomite lime or not because the water is too alkaline? Or is the problem that I haven't been fertilizing regularly?! AAAAh! I don't know where to start! lol!

If its anything like my pepper plants (and it may not be, but they also like well drained soil) you can put them in pretty much anything, as long as you can control the amount of water that the plant is getting. As long as you don't get carried away and over water, most soils suffice. If you want best practice, it sounds like a well draining soil would be better. Not sure how hot it gets up there in N FL, but here in the Tampa area, its already quite hot. From my experience having a mulch (such as your shells perhaps?) down helps to protect the roots by insulating the soil from the heat. This will keep the soil cooler, and thus cause it to retain some water. As I said, I grow peppers, so whether that is a good thing or not, I'll let others answer :).

Now that I have learned to grow citrus with no problems I have 3 Poncirus trifoliata of grafting size and 4 sweetlee tangerine trees of vigor that will be graft-able next spring. That's 7 root-stocks that I can graft my twigs from the grafted tree I can purchase. My purchased tree will grow faster by waiting a year and will out grow anything I bought a year earlier. My decision is to not buy a grafted tree and to grow what I have. If it fruits, great If they don't. Well we'll see My from seed Nagami kumquat for grafting to poncirus trifoliata Seed grown Meiwa kumquat tree. The tree fruit I am interested in. To be grafted on to the poncirus trifoliata moots through the Nagami inter-stock. May also go directly to my sweetlee tangerine tree root-stock, Seed grown sweetlee tangerine tree for root-stock #1 Seed grown sweetlee tangerine tree for root-stock #2 Seed grown sweetlee tangerine tree for root-stock #3 Seed grown sweetlee tangerine tree for root-stock #4 Seed grown poncirus trifoliata to be grafted on Is posted above . Its in a blue 55 gallon half drum. This completes what I have done and what I have. If I think of anything I'll add on to this thread Steve This post was edited by poncirusguy on Tue, Nov 5, 13 at 18:29

Purlisa: I no longer post for the pubic, but I make exceptions when people ask for me specifically. I respect & learn from honest folks like you who share about their garden. I learn more from honest folks who talk about problems in their garden, than gorgeous pics. of roses (with zero details as to type of soil & pH-level & climate & annual rainfall). That's my pet-peeve in HMF, folks just post pics, without specifying if it's own-root or grafted, zero info. on planting zone & type of soil & climate. If you click on my Houzz profile-picture , I updated to include tips on how to tell which own-roots are appropriate for which soil pH, type of soil & climate, just by looking at the leaves. https://www.houzz.com/user/strawchicago I received 8 roses yesterday 6/15 from RU summer sale, they are BIG, and some are over 2 feet tall & with buds & blooms .. very healthy. These roses are bigger & more blooms that the 7 roses I bought full-price early May. My last house was acidic clay: soft & easy to dig, with blue hydrangeas & deep-colors roses. My current house is alkaline clay: rock-hard, need a pick-ax to dig, pink hydrangeas, and roses have faded colors. Roses are much healthier in alkaline clay. My purpose of posting is to help foiks NOT to make the same mistakes like I did in my 30+ years of growing roses, and 110 own-root varieties. My B.S. is in Computer Science, minor in Chemistry, so I want to use my background to help folks. If you have sticky & dense clay, skip the Epsom salt (magnesium sulfate), since it hardens clay further. MAGNESIUM DEFICIENCY IS RARE, EXCEPT IN SANDY SOIL (this is from the booklet when I got my soil tested by EarthCo.) My sticky clay soil was tested exceedingly high in magnesium. Skip the molasses, I tested for many years and it attracts rose-slugs, plus sugarly stuff LOWERS soil pH, sugar sours things fast. Azomite is similar to dolomitic lime (both have pH 9), but Azomite works faster. Digging deep, and remove the dense & icky clay & rocks at bottom helps with drainage, so acidic rain water don't sit at the bottom to rot roots. If your clay soil is acidic, COARSE sand (paver's sand) is good on top. BAGGED SAND AT STORES IS VERY ALKALINE, so it will neutralize the acidity of rain. Niels in Denmark, with hundreds of roses, put sand on top of his acidic clay. Skip the alfalfa, it becomes VERY ACIDIC like Kimchi if decays in acidic rain water. Many folks report roses breaking out in blackspots after "sour alfalfa tea", it's like watering roses with sauerkraut or Kimchi-water. At least Kimchi or sauerkraut has salt to control the acidity, but I already tested acidic-alfalfa-tea and it made leaves thinner, thanks to its acidity. Since my clay is rock-hard alkaline at pH near 8, I use acidic pine bark (pH 4) to fix my clay. People root roses in sand. I read a book by a CA rose-grower on the coast (mild temperate climate), he bought a land filled with sand and converted into a rose nursery, to sell cut-flowers !! Here's an excerpt from Houzz when I googled on clay .. folks in CA have heavy abode clay, while I have dolomitic clay. But both are mineral-rich clay. Kittymoonbeam have over 100+ roses in Southern CA, wrote this in Houzz .. from my experience I agree with her 100% .. I killed plenty of roses with acidic organic matter in the planting hole. And Roses Unlimited's tip of 1 cup of alfalfa meal mix-in WORKS ONLY FOR THEIR ALKALINE-TAP WATER inside nursery, but NOT FOR OUTDOOR ACIDIC RAIN, with pH 4.5 in my Chicagoland, and even more acidic rain on the East Coast. Kittymoonbeam - "I just came from a soils class by a local nurseryman. He said DON'T add organic amendment into the soil. The plants only tolerate it, not prosper in it. The short of it is that eventually it breaks down and rots causing oxygen problems in the root zone. A NASA guy said NO terrestrial plant wants to live in ground up dead tree. So most potting soils are only good for maybe 5 months, then they start harming plants. The growers know the plants can only survive a short period before they decline in that mix. Potting up in non amended soil causes no harm. You can grow in 100 percent sand as long as you water and feed often enough. Strawberry leaves from plants grown in sand were twice the size of those in the premium potting mix! There are no overwatering issues. Why the change from propagation in soil to wood products is a long story. However, we've all been taught to do it. But no one ever used to in the old days. Disneyland removed their riverbed soil and replaced with amended soil. After a few years, they took it all out and purchased new riverbed sandy loam and now they only mulch on top. This is all new to me but that's the way it was for millions of years. The organic stuff stays on top where it breaks down and travels to the roots below. Roots want a purely mineral soil with as much oxygen as they can get and still be moist." Kittymoonbeam. Lauren (Los Angeles, 10a, Sunset Zone 19) - kittymoonbeam, that does seem to make sense. Limited personal experience has also showed me that top dressing compost with shredded leaves/mulch produced better results than than simply mixing some compost into the surrounding soil" Lauren