Hi Eskota, Pruning sealer is something that Gator and I disagree on. As has been mentioned, Linda Chalker-Scott is not the end-all authority for horticulture, but at least her conclusions are scientifically based. Below is a link of what she has to say regarding pruning sealer. I do think Bug Juice could have a small slight residual benefit if you are concerned about borers colonizing a pruning wound. Not that there is anything particularly special about Bug Juice (i.e. Deltamethrin) vs. other pyrethroids, but any broad spectrum insecticide will tend to slow borers down. I think there could be some advantage to treating large wounds with a strong copper solution. The reason is that large wounds can take many years to heal over. If the wound is large enough the wood in the center of wound can rot before the wound calluses over completely. If that happens, it will leave a hole that could trap water in the hole and slow callusing even more. Copper is decidedly different than asphalt or caulk type products that are routinely sold for wound dressings. Copper will not seal in moisture. I will also point out that my comments regarding copper are not based upon scientific testing. They are based only on deduction and some experience. Deductively, copper has fairly good broad spectrum fungicide activity. Copper is also one of the preservatives of treated lumber. And again copper will not seal in moisture as other wound dressings can. I first learned of this idea from an arborist who posted on a different forum. He claimed to have used this treatment with good success. My experience is also anecdotal. I've tried it on one very large wound. I treated the wound a couple times in the last three years and haven't seen any rotting of the core wood yet. The wound continues to close up. It was probably the largest wound I've made (about 6"). I've made several smaller wounds 4" or less and haven't put any copper on them and they've healed up themselves. I do try to spray big wounds when I spray the fruit for insects and disease. Generally I have an insecticide and fungicide in the tank mix, so the wounds get attention of a sort. I try not to let unwanted limbs get so far ahead of me that I have to use a chain saw. I'm getting better and for the last few years I've only made large wounds where I let central leader trees (like pears) get too tall and am bringing them down slowly. Here is a link that might be useful: Linda Scott - Wound dressings

Some kind of deciduous stone fruit, like a cherry. If you are bothered by the fallen petals, you really won't like it if it ever has a good crop of fruit. I was once approached - while gazing upon some Japanese flowering cherry street trees of a locally rare variety - by a duffer with a flat-top haircut and an artificial lawn and no trees or shrubs who hoped I was there to cut the trees down. You see, the fallen petals made "an awful mess" and he just had to get his blower out each year and blow them away. In Japan there is a tradition of setting out blankets in front of flowering cherry trees, having a picnic and gazing upon the falling petals etc. To become comfortable with the situation you either remove the tree to accommodate your existing point of view or change the way you think about it and keep the tree.

Some ponds are never cleaned and the ponds and its occupants survive very well. However, a large number of ponds are created with high fish densities or are built in locations were the pond receives a great deal of debris over the year. Even if you start out with just a few fish initially, in a healthy pond they will breed to the point that the number of fish will push the environmental limits of your pond and biofilter. The debris may be the result of leaves blowing into the pond, the die-back of vegetative pond plants as well as fish wastes. It is these latter types of conditions that will necessitate you cleaning the pond eventually. The two most likely time points for cleaning are in the fall, to reduce the amount of accumulated muck on the bottom of the pond as you head into winter, or in the spring to remove material accumulated over the winter from leaves blowing into the pond, accumulated fish waste or catkins and similar materials shed by trees as they leaf out. Cleaning in the fall reduces wastes in the bottom of the pond which may turn anaerobic if sufficient oxygen is not available, creating a breeding ground for harmful bacteria, or which may decompose, releasing ammonia and other dangerous chemicals that can be trapped under the ice. The build-up of these pollutants can lead to fish kills over the winter months. While keeping a hole in the ice over winter will help alleviate the accumulation of gases, cleaning the pond before winter sets in will reduce the overall potential for problems. Cleaning the pond in the spring may help reduce diseases and parasites that often occur as the pond and its biology warms up for the summer, as well as reduce the overall availability of nutrients that stimulate algae growth. The following are a few approaches that have been successfully used to clean the pond. 1. If the pond has a bottom drain periodic changes of water (typically 10% per week) have been used to evacuate the accumulated debris from the bottom of the pond. This simple approach minimizes the amount of material that is removed at any one time as well as adds water to the pond on a periodic basis. Care must be taken when adding water to be sure that you have minimized the addition of chlorine and chloramines typically present in many municipal water supplies. This can be done either by pre-treating the water with dechlorination agents or by using a whole-house water filter with an activated carbon cartridge. 2. Using a net such as used in swimming pools is helpful for cleaning out large materials that have settled to the bottom of the pond. However, if there is a very large amount of debris in the pond you should be careful to either remove the fish or use supplemental aeration to avoid creating significant oxygen deprivation due to stirring up anaerobic or large amounts of oxygen-consuming muck. If you notice a rotten egg smell this indicates the presence of hydrogen sulfide. You should immediately stop stirring up the bottom and get the fish out of the water as soon as possible before continuing with the cleaning. 3. You can use a variety of devices for vacuuming the bottom of the pond. Some of these use a garden hose to create a suction through a venturi device. The potential problem with these devices is that the pond may fill up with too much water during a prolonged vacuuming and you may have a potential problem of adding chlorine and chloramines to your pond if you do not pretreat the water. Wet/dry shop vacs, specially those with an attachment for a garden hose to provide a continuous drain, have also been used. These devices may drain a large amount of water from the pond in a short time and therefore it is necessary to either replace the water or use the garden hose to add the water back into the pond through the biofilter. Care must be exercised in reintroducing water taken from the bottom of the pond in that it may be depleted of oxygen as well as have very high suspended sediment levels that may create problems for the fish. A third approach is to use a pump capable of handling a moderate level of solids (such as a sump pump) to pull water from the bottom of the pond and pass it through a device to strain out the majority of the solids and then recirculate the water back into the pond. Filtering materials such as old sweaters, panty hose, etc. have all been used with some success in this approach. In any of these approaches, if using an electrically powered device running on house voltage make sure that you have it plugged into a GFI protected circuit for your own safety. Ronaye, Steve and David

Yes to Kara's suggestions. But unless you can give it more light, new plant will grow the same - long, skinny and weaker. Personally, I don't like to tug, dig out to check or poke plants - leave them in the container without disturbance and they will grow. Especially if there are plenty of leaves. Dried up leaves should be removed. What kind of soil is the plant in?And is there a drainage hole in container?