Well I have a few more questions - I think I do need to relax a litlte but I was trying to get the whole history there! Anyways - hard to tel from the overall picture - but right now we have a TON of weeds on the hilly areas that took a lot longer to fill in. I tried pulling some by hand but didn't make much progress - there are literally probably in a give 3x3 area probably 5-6 crabgrass growing. I know they are annual and will die but should I be trying to pull out at least the biggest offenders? A few more very specific questions: 1. How often should I be watering? Right now I have 14 zones, i am running each zone for 30 minutes. I run zones 1-7 on one day and zones 8-14 on the opposite days. IS this too often? Shoudl I only be watering every 3rd day? 2. In the backyard, my grass is barely growing at all. We had a very heavy rainstorm a few weeks ago and I think all the nutrients were washed from the soil. I literally have no growth at all back there. Should I put some fertilizer down; or is that too risky in July? 3. When should i overseed the lawn? IS it OK to try and patch areas now that are completely bare? I had been scraping the surface, putting down the seed, and then putting peat moss on top previously. 4. After the sprinkler system install I have really nice "lines" going across the lawn where they dug the trenches. The earth is elevated at these parts. How do I flatten out my lawn again? Does this just take time; or should I try rolling it? (keep in mind lawn is only 10 weeks old) Thanks -

Hi Bernard, I hope I don't repeat something because I only got about halfway through this thread before I got sick of reading and decided to go ahead and post. #1. I don't know where the idea come from that calloused roots are good. Callouses can't absorb water. It's dry scar tissue that keeps in/out moisture, thereby protecting broken stems and so on. When a plant's roots are partially exposed by wildlife digging, etc., the exposed portion callouses to keep the plant from dehydrating, but that calloused portion will never absorb water again. We don't want roots to callous (except maybe Bonsai growers who like to expose some roots over a rock or something). Putting a root system into dry mix is never good for it. I challenge anyone to prove how dehydrating or callousing a root system can possibly be good for it. The previous poster who said the dry mix will dehydrate the plant is correct. Always use damp mix for re-potting a healthy root system. If the roots are dead, it might be a different story. #2. As you've already learned, it's easy to under-water gritty mix. Since it's pretty close to impossible to over-water grit, I'm with the posters who say to soak it deeply and often. If you're paranoid, soak it daily, or even twice daily, but then give the pot a quick, little down-up motion to dislodge any perched water. That way it'll always be just barely moist. If it were mine, and planted in grit, I'd just water every day or two until the roots are well-established. As one who has killed off whole, healthy root systems by under-watering grit (once weekly), I feel confident in telling you that you're extremely unlikely to drown a plant in grit. I'm watering my succulents daily right now, and some are STILL too dry. BTW, Danny, I think mentioned he prefers soil for jades. I don't disagree with him. The one I have in soil has grown much better than the ones I have in grit. Furthermore, the Aeonium I had in a 1:1 soil:pumice mix has a huge, beautiful, healthy root system. The big one in grit has puny roots. These aren't experiments with standardized variables, so something else might be going on, but for now, I'm also not certain that grit is always a better medium.

From the pictures, doesn't look like anything is really wrong. Old leaves are supposed to droop and die, then new ones replace them. The Pleiospilos with the flower bud is blooming out of season so it's all mixed up, plus it needs full sun to get the blooms to open, plus it likely is in root shock from the repotting so no surprise it isn't performing at its best. You really should put each plant into its own pot, they don't all share the same growing needs so you can't really take care of them properly that way. Second thing is try to ID what you have and learn about their growth needs. Reading and learning is the key. Don't be discouraged by the inevitable early failures. Read more about appropriate soil mixes, pots, sun and temperatures. If you have the ability to grow these outdoors they will be much healthier than indoors. Succulents are not good houseplants. They are good at tolerating poor conditions but that doesn't necessarily make them for a windowsill. x

I would guess Epiphyllum oxypetalum aka Queen if the Night. If this were mine I would repot into a mix of 50% rinsed and strained pumice or perlite and the rest cactus mix. This is a rainforest type cactus so they don’t like to go dry like an arid type cactus. Remove as much of the old mix off the roots as you can and repot into new mix. Get a smaller pot with a drainage hole. I would also clip off that little curly piece that’s dying so it doesn’t make it’s way down to the healthy bits. When you repot wait about 5 days and then water. It’s so important for all succulents, but especially succulents that like a little more water that the drainage and airflow be right. Check out this link.