In case you missed the other thread, I am copying the planting advise from Dr Manners below. I pretty much follow similar procedure in the bay area and have had great results for the past few years. Good luck. ================================================== Copied from the other thread: Be sure not to plant it too deep. No deeper than it was in the container. Actually, I'd plant it a bit higher, so the crown (where the trunk enters the ground) is an inch or two higher than the surrounding ground level. Try not to break up the root ball any more than you have to (difficult with very large plants), but if the pot contains a soil very different from your native soil (e.g., peat vs. sandy), I'd recommend, once you have the root ball in the planting hole, blasting away the outer several inches of that soil with a hose, so some good roots are exposed. Don't let them dry out. If possible, run enough water into the hole to flood it all the way to the top. That, too, can be a challenge with sandy soil and a very large planting hole. Then add soil back into the hole a shovel-full at a time, under the water. By doing that, you are avoiding air pockets. Every so often, punch down through it with the shovel handle, again to break up clods and remove air pockets. Your goal is to get intimate contact between native soil and those outer, exposed roots, so they'll not have a soil transition zone to have to grow through. Such a planting procedure can result in a far more vigorous tree in the first few years after planting. Also, if you plan to do this planting now, while it's hot, you might consider some judicious pruning of the top, to reduce the amount of leaf canopy that is using water, until the compromised roots have time to recover. If you do a good job of not breaking roots in the planting process, that is not so great a problem, but if you do have an accident and rip loose a major root, I'd definitely do some pruning to more closely match the size of the top to the root system's ability to get water to it. Malcolm M. Manners John and Ruth Tyndall Professor of Citrus Science Florida Southern College Lakeland Here is a link that might be useful: Planting advise on another thread

Years ago, I had terrible clay. I dug all my beds, it was back breaking. This was before the gardenweb and "lasagne" bed forming (which is basically a version of creating the garden above the soil.) I threw out solid junks of clay and amended with loads and loads of compost/humus, mostly in cheap bags from Walmart. Because of the clay, many poorly chosen plants did not do well, so each time I replanted an area, I double-dug and turned in more compost. Cost me a lot of money and sweat. Today, my soil is SWEET to work in. Fluffy, easy. A real joy. People comment on it when they see me dig. I often hated gardening when I had the clay and I hated weeding..because it was so difficult. Now, weeding is fun. The stuff just pops out for the most part. So, it can be done, you just have to want to do it. My philosophy was this: never ignore an opportunity to amend...if I was digging for any reason, I amended. I usually bought the humus bags on clearance, too, so I'd have them on hand whenever I was gardening. I also used some pricy soil conditioners now and then, as well as gypsum. Just depended on my budget/mood and level of frustration. Lately, I've seen quite a few bags at nurseries that say "soil conditioner". Nice thing is, the hostas always did just fine in the clay. Those were the beds that took me the longest to get fluffy because I didn't have to replant them often, so they got amended less. However, even years of mulching helped those beds and they are nice now, too. If I were you, I'd do the largest area you have time and budget for. Maybe instead of "one hosta hole", you dig and amend 1 square yard each time you plant a hosta. Before you know it, you'll have beautiful fluff. Some free opportunities do exist that will help: coffee grounds from coffee places, autumn leaves on curbs...bring them home, run the mower over them a few times and spread them on your beds, your own produce waste for composting, your community may offer free compost. When you get free stuff, you often introduce a lot of weed seeds. I found that applying PREEN really helped with that.

I've found that keeping them off the ground eleminates 99% of the slug damage. I use pot feet mostly. I have seen slight slug damange on two hosta this year. One had some vinca touching it and the other touched the fence. I moved each away from those things, put some bug getta in them and the damage stopped. I noticed a few years ago that the pots that were on the ground in spring were full of holes. The ones on feet weren't. So I put them all on feet. Since Babka showed me her sticks, I've started using them too. It seems as if it will work as well as feet and they're a whole lot easier to get. It works for me. I didn't have any good photos of pots on feet, but you can see them on this photo. (ignore the hail damage)

If they are in good health, then planting immediately is a good idea. Be prepared to water often until they send out a new root system. See the link provided below for more detailed care instructions. Paul Here is a link that might be useful: How to Care for Miniature Roses