That's a really hard question, and the answer is neither clear cut or something everyone would be able to relate to. Even as a bonsai judge, I can't say that I can identify grower A's plants from grower B's plants unless there is an obvious disparity in the skill levels between the growers. For the most part, a bonsai practitioner's job is to bring out the TREE's personality by helping the tree to tell its own story, even if it is an imaginary one. IOW, we try to minimize the appearance that we (the grower) had any hand at all in bringing a tree along to the point where it becomes evocative. Often, our skills as a bonsai artist are measured in our ability to disguise our skills; that is to say in our ability to make the viewer see the tree as a creation of nature instead of the artist. Once I see a tree in a show or in a magazine, I usually remember the artist who created it, but even though I might know many of the works of a particular artist well, I would have great difficulty picking his/her particular trees out of a show, even if I knew that artist was a part of the local talent the show was representing, if I had never seen the tree before. I took in the Midwest Bonsai Show this past August. As an aside, it was the best that show has ever been, IMO. The Garden's trees were well prepared for the show, and there were at least 100 exceptional trees in the judging. I did recognize many of the trees because I'd seen them before in other venues, so knew who their owners were, but I found myself having to turn over the informational cards that marked each exceptional tree to see who created them, even though I had a good idea of what individuals' work was being represented in the show and their relative skill level. It's even difficult to make any sort of judgment about personalities based on how a grower's trees look or how they are shaped. First, most high quality bonsai only look good for a short time every 2-3 years. The rest of the time they are recovering or building up energy for the next major operation. Also, judging a person's personality by how his trees look is about the same as judging his personality by how his shoes or his car looks. In reality, the most information you can get from how my trees look or your plants look is how we prioritize and how skillful we are. The greatest guy in the world might have nasty looking plants if he has either a poor set of skills or looks at plants as a low priority pastime; and the biggest jerk might have beautiful plants if he's skillful and puts a high priority on the condition of his plants. Where you CAN tell a lot about people and personalities is how they present themselves here, in forum settings. I think that speaks volumes about a person to those that pay attention and are able to read between the lines. Al

Tracy - it depends on the humidity. Mine are all on wicks and I bottom water streptocarpus plants in 5" pots about every 5 days. We are so dry in Colorado that I never use a hair dryer - so everything violets included needs more water - and wicks and mats create the necessary humidity around the plants. In other climates may be it is 50% humidity at home and 90 - outside, so the plants grow better and bigger. The only very scientific gadget I use is my index finger. You touch the soil - and you can tell - dry - or needs to be watered tomorrow - or wet. That's why there is always dirt under this nail - while the rest of the hands look nice and clean. :-)) I.

My soil isn't very good. Very sandy loam with lots of rocks. Drains very fast. Can compact to concrete like hardness (I know this only too well from my project to replace the front lawn with drought tolerant plants--oh my aching back!). Low fertility which may explain why rugosas like it so much. Just yesterday I moved 1 rose and planted 5 others. All holes drained well, but in one I had the hose turned on full blast using a watering wand, and the hole wouldn't fill up--the water was draining as fast as I put it in! I try to put into practice for my roses some of what I've learned in classes at the local botanic garden. Group plants together with similar water needs. Also plant in plant communities--the concept is the plants help each other in some way, whether it is by nourishing the soil with nitrogen-fixing capabilities, giving natural mulch from leaves, or providing shade--especially for roots but sometimes from above to block the worst of summer heat for those plants that need some protection. Not long after I planted Wild Edric, I gave him a friend in the form of a heat and sun loving drought tolerant salvia from South Africa called Salvia namaensis. This salvia is very bushy and grows fairly fast. It provides WE's roots with shade for much of the day. Needs zero fertilizer and very little water yet blooms most of the year. How much of a difference this has made for Wild Edric I don't know, but neither plant seems to require much water and they both look great. I have been experimenting with putting various other low water plants, especially California natives adjacent to my roses. And many do get their roots shaded by various neighbors. Sometimes I use drought tolerant grasses such as Bouteloua gracilis and others that also provide food for wildlife and snacks for my dogs. Sort of mutually beneficial gardening with a minimum of intervention needed on my part, kind of mini ecosystems. I have lots of bees, birds, and butterflies in my garden as they can find food and shelter there year round. A nitrogen fixer that you might like is Olneya Tesota (Desert Ironwood). It has lavender sweet pea like flowers and is a nurse plant in desert areas. Can go for periods without much water or handles moderate garden watering just fine (but frequent summer water will kill it). Very slow growing however. Melissa Here is a link that might be useful: Olneya Tesota, Desert Ironwood

I don't water on a schedule of any sort. I just water the plants when they look dry. We have all kinds of soil on our property and some of it retains water much longer than the soil in other areas, so that some of it needs water more often and other areas need water much less often. The age of the plants has a lot to do with how often a plant needs water too. Plants that have been in the ground for three full years or longer are generally much more well-established than younger plants and go a lot longer in between waterings. In the veggie garden, every raised bed drains differently because the soil at one end of the garden has more sand and drains more quickly, while soil at the other end has a lot more clay and drains more slowly. So, I just watch the beds and water the plants in any given bed when they look like they need it. I keep my beds heavily mulched and only water with a hand held hose, soaker hoses or drip irrigation. I don't like using overhead irrigation via sprinklers because of the evaporation rate, and because wet foliage is prone to diseases. At the lower end of the garden, for example, tomato plants transplanted into a raised bed in early April are very well established in soil that is well amended but still has a heavy clay content. They also are very heavily-mulched. They get deep watering once every 5 to 7 days when no rain is falling at this time of year. By contrast, at the upper end of the garden, I just put in a row of melons, a row of okra and two rows of bush lima beans (all from transplants) when I dug potatoes this weekend. They are in a bed with a lot more sand mixed in with the clay, so right now they are getting watered every day until they have established and are putting out new growth. After that, as they grow and become more well-established, I'll be able to water less often, especially after they're tall enough that I can pile up heaps of mulch which, right now, would bury the small plants. All our trees and shrubs are well-established, so they and the lawn get watered once every couple of weeks. Back when I first planted them years ago, I probably watered them about once or twice a week depending on how dry it was. The bermuda grass lawn gets water only if it gets it "accidentally" when I am watering the shrub and tree beds or the perennial beds. I hate the bermuda grass and deliberately withhold water from it hoping it will die. So far it hasn't. If grass fires start happening in our neighborhood and I've let the bermda grass go dormant and turn brown (which is occurring right now), I'll start watering it again to green it up. We have soaker hoses on the ground around our foundation and water the foundation area religiously to avoid having the dense red clay soil crack and make the foundation crack along with it. I'd rather have a higher water bill every month than have to pay for expensive foundation repair. May was very nice. We had almost 6" of rain and hardly had to water at all. Our water bill was like a mid-winter water bill. June is a completely different story. Like Carol, I have to water containers every day, so I planted a lot fewer containers this year than usual because I was expecting drought and didn't want to have to water containers endlessly. Right now the container-grown tomatoes are happy with once-a-day watering, but if it gets much hotter, they'll be needing it twice a day. If this heat wave doesn't break soon, I'm going to start putting shadecloth up over the tomatoes. It sure seems early to do that, but it is so hot here. If you look at the Mesonet soil moisture levels, our county looks great, but I think the moisture sensors must be malfunctioning. I dug potatoes all weekend, so I dug down about 6 to 8 inches below grade level in those beds, and the soil was dry, dry, dry. From looking at the mesonet soil moisture charts, you'd think the soil was nice and moist, which it absolutely is not. I spent minimal time in the garden early this morning, planting a row of red sunflowers and watering the news transplants, and pulling a few weeds. Then, I ran errands, cleaned house and waited for the internet service company service reps to come check our wireless antenna. (They replaced a wire and I'm hoping that will put a halt to our recent internet service issues.) It is so hot that today seemed like a good day to be doing "inside chores". Tomorrow I hope to get outside early and spend two or three hours harvesting, weeding and adding another layer of mulch to some of the beds. Because we had good rainfall in May, I haven't had to water a whole lot yet, but as the soil dries up and our rain chances seem very slim, I expect I'll be watering more and more. In hot, dry summers I am very careful to avoid over-feeding and over-watering because the last thing I want is plants with tons of lush growth that demand lots and lots of water to keep them looking good. A lot of the gardeners here in Love County stop watering at the end of June amd just let their veggie gardens die. It is an economic decision where they compare what they're spending watering versus what they are harvesting and decide whether they are harvesting enough to make the watering worthwhile. I have done that during years with Extreme or Exceptional dought,but if we're only Abnormally Dry or in Moderate Drought, I tend to get good enough production that the watering is worthwhile to me. Dawn