Bunnygirl is right on the mark. When transplanting any succulent, let the roots/cut stem dry in the air for a few days so that any small injuries harden to prevent fungal infection. Plant in dry soil and do not "water in". Soil should be at least 50% inorganic materials like pumice, perlite, gravel, etc. Do not use sand. Peat retains too much water and should be avoided like the plague! Commercial potting mixes (including those labeled Cactus and Succulent) have too much peat. My basic mix is about 75% pumice. It looks like they are all are infected by fungus, and will certainly die without intervention. The translucent color is a very bad sign. Pull them up immediately and inspect the roots and lower stem. If they are falling apart, and the stem is dark and soft, the only cure is to cut the stem above the rot. This may not be possible for the pups, as I suspect the leaves will fall off the stem leaving nothing to grow, but the parent plant may still be salvageable. After transecting the stem above the rot, let it dry out in the air for three days or more to callous. Then place in DRY soil. You may need to prop up the plant. Do not water until the plant has started to grow new roots, this will take some time (weeks). During this time, water in the lower leaves will be resorbed by the plant. This is natural. Succulents usually have sufficient water reserves to last for months without any water at all. When you see signs of new growth, start watering. Let the soil dry out completely between watering. There is no proper schedule, everything depends too much on your local conditions (heat/humidity/season/latitude/soil composition/etc). The basic rule is: If in Doubt, Don't! This axiom is true for any action, watering, transplanting, fertilizing, etc. Succulents thrive on neglect. The ideal cultural practice is called Benign Neglect. In your case, there is no doubt that intervention is necessary to save your plants. For more aloe care advice, read the Aloe FAQ page here on the site. Good luck! Brad

Still a tad small for my eyes. Can you try again please?

Thanks for your replies. The PB (who subcontracted out the plaster work) is trying to weasel out of having any responsibility for the plaster. The owner of the plaster company met with me today and seems like a decent guy. He confirmed that they put down a 50% blue/ 50% green 3m colorquartz mix in our pool. His story is the PB/general contractor issued him a work order requesting the 50/50 mix rather than 100% blue. As I have caught the PB in a couple of other bald-faced lies since starting the renovation, I am leaning towards believing the plaster guys. Also regarding the cemented in spa jets, typically the PB would issue the order to the plaster co. (the subcontractor) to remove or replace the jets before completing the plastering job. In this case it wasn't done. The plaster co. has indicated that they will work with us to get the spa jets resolved. They think we may be able to replace part of the jet without a complete removal of the jet fixture and subsequent replaster of the spa) being necessary. They were also surprised to learn that the PB did not assist with the initial start-up after the plaster was done. Apparently, for this type of application they recommend 2-3 days of an acid bath to remove a lot of the top layer of plaster and reveal more of the colorquartz. Not sure who should have told us about that, but 3 weeks in we are trying the acid bath right now to see if it cleans up the finish. After 3 hours, the spa is looking a lot more colorful (although it's blue and green!). At this stage we are leaning towards living with the blue/green. I really do not want to go through another 3 weeks of brushing 3x per day for a new plaster job. The blue/green is definitely more blue than green. It looks blue from the deck. And who knows, maybe we would end up not liking a straight 100% blue plaster as well as this blue/green mix. Either way, we'll never use this PB again. I'll post some pics of the entire pool once we're done with the acid bath in a couple of days. Thanks again.

In case you're wondering, Yuzu can survive a cold winter in the Seattle area unprotected, but suffers some damage. The tree will be able to keep some of its leaves, maybe about half, depending on if it is located in a warm spot. It won't start growing until about the very end of May. Seattle is pretty far north in latitude but only zone 8a, so the winter temperatures don't get too extremely cold, though the winters are long (almost feels like half the year). My little Yuzu tree was completely blanketed in snow. A Yuzu-Clementine hybrid managed to survive but suffered some substantial damage and has still not managed to leaf out. It only managed to send out a tiny little single deformed leaflet after July 4, which doesn't look very well right now. The parts of the little tree which are not dead and grey have now turned a healthy live green color, it's just no leaves.