@greenman28 "I pre-water my containers first, then I slowly add the fertilizer solution until I see water exiting the bottom" I am assuming that you wait until the soil is more or less dry all throughout (checking with a wooden dowel)? For large pots, this method seems to takes a long while. I feel like I'm wasting wasting good fertilizer in the process. I pre-water until I start seeing water coming out of the drain hole (the pot is a few inches raised above a drain plate), then I immediately add the fertilizer... but I never know how much, especially in very large pots where I hold my citrus. 0.5 gal? 0.25 gal? I can't seem to find anything about this. It often seems I'm wasting a lot and making a 4-5 1-gallon batches just to fertilize a couple plants. I do collect the effluent in the drain plates I have my containers in, if the pot isn't way too heavy to pick up.

Dave- I haven't used it yet. CoriAnn uses it. I'll ask her. I'll let everyone know if I see any improvement to anthracnose after I foliar spray since I don't have much blackspot. I'll also see if it helps with aphids since I have these too. Patty- funny in a not funny, haha, way! I think "ironic" might be the better word. Is anthracnose as bad a disease as black spot? My roses look awful but they still have their leaves unlike with bs. And some of the Kordes are fine as is Julia and my DA Windermere and Queen of Sweden. I'm still learning. Since it doesn't cause complete defoliation I'm thinking (hoping) it might be the lesser of two evils. I haven't sprayed yet, partly out of laziness but mostly out of concern for the environment. So many of these products are harmful to aquatic life. Our property abuts a designated swamp. I'd hate to cause damage to the eco-system there. My hydrangeas and hostas look fine so it doesn't seem as bad as yours. I'll let you know when I use the Pro-tekt. With luck it just might do what it says it does. Wouldn't that be great :-) Kelp4Less has silica powder available for hydroponics. According to the info it has recently been approved asa plant nutrient recognized by science. It's helpful for those who especially grow in raised beds or pots which CoriAnn does. I have bought from Kelp4Less. They're a bit pricy but have great service and organic products. The video is a bit long but here's the link if anyone is interested- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB5pBCdnMTE Dave- it seems according to the Kelp4Less is used as a drench not a foliar spray. It might be because they are geared more to hydroponics though. Their's is neutral ph. There are 9 reviews by buyers that say they see improvement in stem strength, leaf strength and disease resistance. I don't think CoriAnn gets much disease in CA where she gardens but she does get extreme heat and uses Pro-tekt for heat and drought stress. Sharon

For hydrophobic soil like yours, I'd start by immersing the entire pot in a bucket of room temperature water until bubbles stop appearing and it sits at the bottom of the bucket without being held there. It could take up to an hour for the pot to get saturated. You might want to de-pot the plant first to see if there are gaps in the soil that let water flow past the soil instead of through it. If there are, try to fill them, or at least gently loosen the roots and soil around the gaps, before you put it back in the pot. Here's what I do when one of my pots with peaty soil doesn't want to absorb water: I concentrate on watering verrrrry sloooooowly, moving a very thin stream of water over the entire surface of the soil until water starts to exit the pot. I wait for at least half an hour for the moisture to wick around, then repeat the process. Sometimes I'll repeat it again until the weight of the pot convinces me it's absorbed as much as it can, then let it drain. Afterward be sure and tilt the pot 45 degrees for 15-20 minutes. If the holes are around the rim you'll see excess perched water draining out while it's tilted; if there's just one hole in the middle, the excess water will drain it when you set it upright again. Hopefully Robin will come back with that link, but Al the Wise disagrees with the idea that you should completely stop fertilizing in the winter, Even if plants aren't really growing much, and recommends reducing the FP concentration to one teaspoon/gallon/week for the winter months. Some have said to leave it there overnight, but I'd base the fertilizing plan as much on growth as the season. Hopefully Robin will come back with that link, but Al disagrees with the idea that you should completely stop fertilizing in the winter, even if plants aren't really growing much. He recommends reducing the FP concentration to one teaspoon/gallon/week for the winter months, and he has so much experience with fertilizing that I believe him. My plants slow down but don't stop growing in the winter since I started giving them supplemental light, and their growth is directly related to the intensity and amount of light they get. The ficus benjaminas are almost comically sensitive to light, pushing new leaves and backbudding like mad within a few days of being moved into outdoor sunlight on the porch, slowing new growth to spring levels almost the minute I move them back indoors, and even responding to, say, going from 12 hours of artificial light to 9 hours. Dave uses supplemental light too, which probably explains why he and I are so liberal with our fertilizer use. I'll admit I sorta forgot to check Al's recommendations this summer and gave my plants two tablespoons/gallon with every watering, which was twice a week for some of them. They seemed to love it, though it was probably the fact that I flush every time I water that let me get away with it. I went to 1 tablespoon/gallon/week when they came inside and then got to ask Al about it, and will go back to 1 tsp/gallon/week in the winter--unless the additional lights I plan to install stimulate much more growth than they produced last winter. I hope something in there helps.

Q, Did you say you were going to have it in your bathroom? A separate room? Do you have a pic of the area? Will it sit in front of a window and will the sun be on it too with lights? Why not crack the window a bit for a few days and close the door. The outside air will flow in giving the tree much time to get use to being in doors) That's what I do and it works great. Never WLD on my trees. So many things can cause WLD, but if you can avoid all the things that can, it would be you proud of yourself) Another thing that can is bringing your trees inside with too much of canopy for the roots to keep up in less than sunshine conditions. That is why I cut most of mine back to compensate for the lack of long sunny days. The roots don't have to work as hard to keep all the leaves healthy. My trees would shed if I didn't. If I can't fit an entire tree into a window to get every bit of sun, they get cut back. Unfortunately too many of our trees share the space which becomes a problem unless your windows are very huge or the tree is very small or only one sitting on the table or sill dedicated for that window. Thank God for grow lights)