mother earth involves soil ... pots use potting media ... or medium ... soil is soil.. and you have to deal with your soil ... we can guide.. but you have to figure it out ... media can be designed for specific applications.. to hold or shed as much water as you want ... e.g. hosta like to be nearly drowned... so they use a lot of peat .. conifers like dry feet .... and you would use a lot of bark or wood chips or perlite .... and very little peat [80/20] how to water.... in your soil in your yard is for you to figure out ... you have to supply water to the roots you disturbed.. that means at the root level ... water .. then insert finger or small trowel ... and see if there is anything down at the roots ....once you get the water down there... do not water again until it is dry down there .... use finger or shovel ... you have to figure it out ... in my sand... pure mineral sand .... i might water once a month.. if there is any decent rain ... only my finger will tell ... but i have 100% drainage .... maybe every 2 weeks in the heat of summer ... maybe once a week in drought and heat .... there is never standing water in sand a lot of peeps have to deal with clay ... dig a 15 gal cauldron .. fill it with water.. and in bad clay.. you might come back a month later.. and it will still be full of water... that is how they make ponds up here .... dig hole in sand.. line with clay .... unless you buy a swamp plant.. a conifer will not like that much water.. and there are special ways to plant in clay ... anyway .... to turn your thumb green.. insert it into the soil.. until you begin to understand how water moves in and through it .... the more you learn about it.. the happier you garden will be .... GOOD LUCK!!! ken

Italian Cypress are valuable landscape plants. I wonder how tall they are? I've never seen one leaning over. Is it possible that you might lossen them up a bit below and then run some wires above and to try and re-train them to stand errect? You can certainly cut them, but you'll still be stuck with the trees to get rid of and stumps that need to be dealt with. What I would suggest is putting an add in Craigslist under "free" or "farm and garden". Let them go to a profession landscaper. Stipulate that they can have them for free but they must be preofessional landscapers with the proper equiptment to remove them, refill the hole and replace any damaged holly. Make sure that when they show up they have the proper equiptment and are people you are confident to deal with. I think as long as you had a pro removing them you should be ok and you'll have the whole job done in one day with no stumps to worry about later. Good luck!

Thank you all for the replies, really appreciate it. Ken: can you please expand why it's not good to plant this tree that close to the house? This is a narrow tree, is the issue that it's roots still need more space and they just hit the foundation? For the fabric, that was under the mulch. It's just more visible in the latter photos once I removed dirt around the root. What did your comments about the fabric mean? Embothrium: my understanding (and I'm very new at this) is that if this tree is trimmed at a certain height it'll stay there. Is that not true? plantkiller_il_5: thank you for the clarification. So do you think the issue is its depth, and not the mites? e.g. the mites are just feeding on a sick tree that was going to be sick regardless?

First, my apologies for posting multiple plants in a single post. Thanks for the help in identifying things. This is by far one of the most consistently useful spots on the internet. :-) #1 - Crownbeard - got it, thanks! These are planted over the leach field. They were a pleasant surprise when they appeared. #2 - Morning glory - Definitely only one type of vine...they literally just showed up days ago, and definitely still showing seed leaves. But...I'm still not sure how they showed up, haha. No sign of them anywhere else on the property, just on this rock-filled slope. Where they might make sense as a ground cover. (We've planted some creeping thyme here for the same purpose.) But they weren't there last fall. Weren't there this spring. Literally, no signs of any vines, living or dead. Just some irises planted in some spots within the rocks. These sprouted completely out of the blue about a week ago, all over the rock area, and then immediately started to die back for lack of water. #3 - Still a weird little tree...I'll get some additional photos and make a new post. #4 - Wee juniper. It'll be interesting to see how this grows out. The property is expectedly full of singleseed juniper (and gray oak), and this doesn't look anything like that. Fun surprise. :-) #5 - Does look like arundo. NO clue why it's where it is, haha. I can't detect any dampness to the ground there. It's on the uphill side of the property, well away from the leach field area. I'm sure it's quite drought stressed, and not sure how it's survived unless there is some water there that I just can't detect without clearing that area. Interesting mystery. Thanks again everyone.