"there is a conifer forum ... " Sorry, I'm new to this board. "what is your soil .... how is your drainage.. and how do you water.. when you do it right????" My soil has a lot of clay. Drainage is fairly good, although I get a lot of water from a higher area that drains through this area. I haven't watered the trees in 2 years. I have just let nature take it's course. This can't be the reason they are dying, as half of the trees looks fantastic. "PS: how do you forget to turn off a hose for 3 days... lol .. you really didnt expect to get away without a little ribbing...." Wasn't really my fault. I actually installed an automatic watering system for these trees. Tied in flexible 1/2" line to my existing automatic sprinklers, and looped them around each tree. LOTS of work, and money. That particular zone got stuck in the "on" position for a few days, hence the mistaken overwatering. And the trees on lower ground were closer to the main feed and seem to get a lot more water than the ones further away. That's why I thought it may have been a water problem. Anyway, I haven't used that zone or watered any of the trees for the last 2 years. I was nervous about overwatering. I am still unsure what's going on. Any help would be appreciated.

Hi Millie, I wouldn't cut them, especially if they are all green and healthly. You can pull off any dead brown outer leaves. I think as long as they are healthly and have no fungus, disease, etc you should leave them as they are. Just my opinion. Alot of us only cut ours when we are digging and dividing. Yvette

In case anyone who originally posted here catches this: I also want a sassafras seedling or two. I live on Alabama gulf coast and want one for the back yard. Love the smell and its a great native butterfly host. I'll pay $10 plus shipping to whoever makes the effort to pull one up for me. Thanks.

I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but I'd like to offer a little commentary about adding things to our soils that aren't nutrients, like sugar, molasses, ..... anything soluble that dissolves into the soil solution. Even if there was something in sugar that was needed and could be used by the plant, sugar couldn't be absorbed by the plant in molecular form. The hydrocarbon chain would need to be cleaved. Sugar (CnH2nOn [n is a number from 3-7]) hydrocarbon chains contain only carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, which are never deficient, so nutritionally it looks like sugar provides nothing the plant doesn't already have in abundance much greater than its needs. What does sugar actually DO when it becomes part of the soil solution? It increases the level of TDS (total dissolved solids) and EC (electrical conductivity). What this does is make it more difficult for the plant to take up water and the nutrients dissolved in water. The goal of a good nutritional supplementation program should be to keep TDS/EC as low as possible w/o the level of nutrients being so low it causes nutrient deficiencies. From this, we can see that ANYTHING in the soil solution that is not nutritional is going to be a limiting factor. To illustrate why non-nutrients in the soil solution are limiting, lets say that in a plant growing strongly, 800 ppm fertility is perfect when only the nutrients essential to growth are present in the soil solution, and they are there in the same ratio in which plants use them. Anything lower than 800 ppm carries the potential for deficiencies, and anything above 800 ppm makes it more difficult to absorb water & nutrients. Skewing the RATIO of nutrients in the soil solution even when the total ppm remains at 800 is also limiting. Adding sugar or any soluble substance the plant can't use has to be limiting. At 800 ppm with sugar being 100 ppm, there can be nutritional deficiencies even if the nutrient ratio is perfect. At 900 ppm with sugar being 100 ppm the effect is limiting because it makes it unnecessarily difficult for the plant to take up water - the primary cause of spoiled foliage in our plants. Sugar can be used just as effectively as salt in the north to melt ice on roads. It isn't, because of the cost differential. In the soil solution, sugar has essentially the same effect as salt. Most brines that we soak our turkeys or meats in prior to smoking have sugar in them. This is partially for the flavor and partially for its tendency to pull water from the cells of the meat & dry it. It has exactly the same effect on plant cells. I really urge you NOT to consider using sugar on your plants. It can't do good and it will be a limiting factor with the potential for considerably harm (plasmolysis - aka fertilizer burn). Al