Hi, thank you for the kind advice and sharing your experiences. The bigger plant look better now but it's smaller brother is not doing so well. I will let time do it's thing. For potting I used Miracle Grow Organic soil and I use organic plant food liquid.

thanks for the info, everyone. I've been giving it lots of drinks. It is less hot today and looking less sickly. hoovb, thanks for posting the photos of your beautiful trees. They are huge, and I wasn't aware they get that big. I'm pretty annoyed that my landscape designer would put it there knowing this gets big. Here's a wider shot of the front. As you can see, the fern tree is right next to the garage, so we have to back our car out right next to it. My car already sort of brushes up against it when I back out. I'm in agreement with you all it needs moved. Any thoughts on what we should replace it with? Something that has some height? The spot gets mostly shade/dappled sun.

Lissa, by the looks of my seedling-to-plants, that's not cheating, it's smart! I didn't have a lot of luck starting my own this year. Peppers, yes. Marigolds, yes. Tomatoes, some good, some bad. Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower, a disaster. I don't think I'll be starting as many of my own plants next year. Granny Here is a link that might be useful: Annie's Kitchen Garden

I was surprised to see how small she was too. I agree with annz, she looks like a spaniel to me, not sure I see much Golden in her. " I realized as I crouched on the floor with her and rubbed her back while she got sick that on some level that I really do love her (finally). It's just a different love than before, but not in a bad way, if that makes sense." I had a similar situation with one of our dogs. We got her at about 3 yrs and for a long time I wondered if it was a mistake. Her behaviour was hmm, problematic in many ways which frustrated me. One day she had an allergic reaction and I realised just how worried I was for her, took her off to the after hours vet etc. The thing is, we do have different relationships with different pets. I've had really close relationships with about half the dogs I've ever owned, where they were like my baby and the bond was just so very strong. I didn't have this with all my dogs though, but I still loved them all very much and would do anything for them. Just my experience, but each of these relationships is different in it's own way but that doesn't mean something is wrong and it seems like you feel your bond with her should be just like it was with your pug girl, no I don't believe that. Treat each pet as an individual because each of them is a different dynamic.