No problem caryscott, it's good to hear all comments. True, I do not live in Canada so the 30" would be the correct cutout. After much consideration and obession about the gaps, I think I'm going to 'try' and live with it:) I have a small galley kitchen and they would have to literally rip out the granite and b/s to correct the gaps. At this point, I'm just 'tired' and want this all behind me. My son & DIL thinks it's fine the way it is. I've just never seen that much space between the counters and stove before. The thought of going through all that again is upsetting. Maybe down the road, I'll get a slide in stove which has the outer edge [lip] on either side. I know that I'm letting this guy off the hook by not insisting that he correct the problem. There's just so much work involved to do that and I know he would fight me on that. I feel like I'm whimping out...guess I am:)

Take a small knife and scrape a tiny ( 1/4 inch or so) bit of bark away from the bottom of the brown area. If it's creamy white or soft green and moist under the bark, that part is still alive. If it's dry and tan or brown, then that area is dead. Do that every foot or so up the top of the tree. At some point if you find dry/tan/brown under the bark and it continues up from there, you can assume that portion of the tree is dead and can cut it off there. Also, alive branches and trunks will feel cool when you hold them, dead area feel warm or the same temp as the air when held. The parts that are still creamy white/soft green and moist under the bark will probably re-sprout again in the future. But it may not sprout until spring. Those brown leaves will not turn green again, but if it's on a live branch (as tested above) when the branch leafs out again in spring, the brown leaves will probably be pushed off by the new growth and fall. Podocarpus are pretty tough trees and in about 2-3 years it will look great again, just don't forget to water during heat waves. Even if it's on an automatic irrigation system, if the temps go over 90*F, it's a good idea to supplement with a hose, as you've found out the hard way. Podocarpus may prefer acid soil, but they are very adaptable and tolerate our neutral to slightly alkaline soils and water just fine. It's really almost impossible to change the pH of a native sol anyway, so I wouldn't worry about that. Don't use peat moss, it is expensive and dries out too easily. Better to use a nice 3-5" thick mulch of composted shredded fir bark instead. It will help keep the soil cooler in summer and reduce evaporation. If you have "Mow N Blow" gardeners who use a blower, try Shredded Bark, also called Gorilla Hair. It resists being blown away by the gardeners better than many other mulches. I'd also give it a good all-purpose fertilizer in spring, around March/April to help it grow again. Always water before and right after fertilizing, never feed a dry plant. Good luck, I think it will be fine. This post was edited by BarbJP on Tue, Dec 30, 14 at 18:21

A little off the topic, but still valuable info: Plants have natural rhythms, and the one growers should give most consideration to is the growth cycle. During this main cycle or rhythm, the plant will go through changes in the levels of it's stored energy and it's current ability to make energy. Both undeniably will be in the area of 'peak' during the weeks immediately before and after the summer solstice, when light intensity is strongest and duration longest. This is the period during which heavy work like repotting and hard pruning are best tolerated and recovery periods are shortest. Plus, since we all care for plants out of a need to nurture, working WITH the plant's natural rhythms provides us with the satisfaction of knowing we're better nurturers for allowing for strengths and weaknesses. Another practical matter that goes almost entirely w/o consideration is the fact that pruning any time but summer ensures we're removing the growth we want to keep and keeping the growth we should be removing. Summer growth is compact, with short internodes (space between leaves). It ensures maximum leaf/branch density (ramification) and allows us to grow compact and full plants. If we prune now, we remove the 'good growth' and end up keeping the long winter growth. Instead, do your hard pruning in late May, removing all long winter growth. You'll then get a full summers worth of tight growth followed by winters long growth again. Allow the winter growth to remain until the next hard pruning in May, during which you prune back to the tight growth again and start the cycle over. I mentioned this because it's another way of working WITH the plant's natural rhythms instead of against them. ".... do you mean that I should pull the bottom inch of roots off the bottom as in loosen them up or actually remove them? And should the vertical slits be just through the roots circling the outside or deeper? You can pull them off or cut them off with a scissors. Removing the bottom half of the root mass is almost always my first step in the repotting process, but because of timing, you'd want to fall far short of a full repot. A VERY healthy root system with the entire soil mass fully colonized with fine roots: This ^^^ is much more than you want to remove, but it gives you an idea of what you'll be doing. If you look at the root mass on the left, you'll see an extra measure of root congestion near the bottom. If you pull at this with your fingers, you'll find there is a natural point of separation, meaning the heavily congested roots will pull away from the less congested roots and sort of decide for you how much to remove. Then, cut the vertical slits 3/4-1" deep in the remaining root mass. If you want, you can snip any loose/hanging roots from the bottom before you settle the plants in a new pot, but it's not necessary - just neater. The larger pot should allow for an inch or two of soil at the bottom and maybe an inch all around the sides of the pot. Al

It appears there still some green where apparently you did a scratch test on the lower trunk? And it looks like a new bud starting just above the scratch. It would be best if the tree sprouted somewhere along the trunk. The higher on the trunk the better. That way you would end up some trunk to go with the new growth. So give it a chance to do that first. Anything coming from the ground will be the same tree but it will be all new growth and if nothing happens higher up, then that will be your tree. So I would wait and not cut anything off yet. That new part is alive and will be making food for the roots until something else sprouts, if it does. If another sprout comes from further up, then wait until that growth progresses well, then after that, you can trim off the lower growth. So just wait for a while and see what happens.