you live and learn.... I grew up in a different part of world. Our soil was (still is ) volcanic, quite enriched with minerals. Our "fertilizer" means buying sheep manure and mixed on the ground before the season starts or place very little under the plants (your parent explain to you it will burn the plant if it is too much) If the soil has been used such a long time or hasn't been used for years we would just go and purchase "pine forest soil" (equivalent to humus). you leave the water hose on for a while and move it to the different part of the garden (water comes from the mountain for free. Ants are sacred (because those are so harmless and so hardworking) and you can play with them by letting them climb on your hands. If you asked me something about gardening my advices would be based on those experiences. I moved to houston and learned over the years that everything is different! I dug a little area in the backyard to plant some stuff. Most of them did very poorly. Aggressive St. Augustine grasses took over some garden patches. I have learned that ants bite and leave you with a very nasty bite. Hard clay is impossible to till, there are not many places you can get sheep manure, there is no definition of "one tractor full forest soil" etc. You PAY for the water and it is city water with chlorine! Eventually I started with one raised bed and grew giant tomatoes. I purchased "vegetable garden mix" from Lowes and mixed with composted manure ;voila! wonderful tomatoes. They stop producing around mid June and I tought " maybe they are big in size but small in production. It must be an American thing. After 10 years in U.S, several attempt to being a Gardner, We have let one Gardner to take care of the soil for the new raised beds and the result: enriched top soil is not for medium growing and soil needs to be replaced! With what? Exactly what we were using years and years ago in the other side of the world with new definition: Potting soil (70% forest material, nitrogen enrichment etc...) duh! read the label dumb lady! Isn't it similar to the "forest soil" Composted cow manure (isn't that the same thing placing manure in earlier in the soil) so there is not only good but easier to handle manure exist some peat most (I still have no clue what it is but I add 5% anyway since it makes the soil softer) Since taste comes first (at least for me ) I stop right there! no more addition. If it is not growing in there It is not meant to be for me. Tomato production stops around June not because those are American plants because of Houston HEAT. I just wanted to tell you what my story is. Overall everyone has a different experience. Unless you are with someone next door who is doing the most sustainable gardening for years you will make a lot of mistake and get a lot of different opinion from different experience. Spending money on gardening : Everyone spends their money one way or another. Some buy clothes, some eat outside, some upgrade their car, some does this some does that. SOme people see it a lot of money spend on hobby, luxury when it comes to gardening some like me think " I don't do this and that and gardening is my only hobby" I would love to purchase a block of land in the city and use it as a community garden with the community around but I cant. Since I can afford 4 raised bed and good soil in it, I will (have done already) do that.

Hey Dave, "Have fun bringing those plants in?!?!"...REALLY?! You more than welcome to come to my apartment and help me then. I ONLY have around 100 or so to move indoors, and just like you, I have other tropicals that also need to come indoors. Last night we hit 45 so I know I will be moving them all indoors this week. MY plan was to spray them all with the FE today but this darn rain is putting a cramp in my plans. Tomorrow I will hopefully be able to spray them all and then as long as the weather co operates, I plan on having them all in for good by next Sunday. Thanks for the pics Dave! I find this very interesting myself! Was it you that sent me the Aztec Gold 2 years ago? If not it was the other Dave. Anyhow, that plumeria(along with maybe 4 or 5 others) did the same as what you described above. I actually felt guilty having to rip those huge, long roots out! Because I have so many trees, I know it would be really hard for me to get them all in the ground. I could do maybe 10 or 15 every day for a week and a half or so, and get them all in that way. I just have t o be more careful with how I do this stuff this year. I am waiting for comp approval for my 3rd back surgery. The last surgery was last November. They put in titanium screws and a cage system, and 2 screws broke, and actually one of those screws fractured my vertabrae. I want to recover from this surgery and not worry about having to have another. A HUGE advantage to sinking the pots into the ground is that you also don't have to worry so much about the pots blowing over. I had so many plumeria that were second year rooted cuttings, and some of them were all ready substantial trees. I want to say that at least every month of the summer, I was picking up 10 or 15 of my trees at least 3 or 4 times! This coming season, I will be repotting almost all my trees so hopefully this wont be such an issue. Thanks again Dave for posting this thread. I would love to see how many other people here did this and what there results were. Bill gave great advice on how you could plant the trees in the ground without having to rip the pot out. HE recommended planting an empty pot that was a couple inches wider than the pot with the tree in it. Then you just slide your tree into that pot and fill in with soil. When fall comes and you have to bring them in, you just pull the smaller pot out. He said that you could leave the larger pot in the ground so the following season you could just put your potted tree right back in without having to go thru digging another hole again. Andrew

Worst problems with larger trees and shrubs typically date back to when they were small trees. The only difference with the specimen being more advanced is that you have more to work your way back through to look for a tight knot or fist below the crown dating back to when it was left too long in a band or small pot - buying them small only makes the deformed roots easier to expose and see. If the disposition of the roots is too severe you are either stuck with planting it and hoping for the best or giving up on it - I threw out a 35 dollar one gallon weeping Nootka cypress because at planting I found that the ENTIRE root system consisted of what looked like a ponytail hair braid like some women belonging to Jehovah's Witnesses wear. How the grower was even able to get the rootstock to twist around itself like that I cannot imagine. Not only was it coiled but it dipped down and then back up, in a U shape. You only plant in spring because that is when the plants are on the market (in good condition, apart from the usual root issues) or because the plants are tender kinds. Otherwise hardy stock should always be planted in fall, late enough that summer heat and drought has passed or is waning but early enough that the big fall annual root elongation has not occurred. (If the roots have to be operated on to a sufficient extent most of the extending of existing roots in fall may be lost, as only intact roots do this). You can tell if a specimen may be about to do this or already doing it by looking at the top, the setting of winter stem buds at the ends of mature, hardened shoots is what causes the root tips to grow at this time of the year. Spring planting is culturally inferior because the soil has been chilled all winter and summer heat and drought are around the corner. Bare-rooted stock from grower warehouses is only planted in spring because the feeder roots are all dried up and dead, need to be replaced before the specimen is fully functional - fall-planted bare-rooted stock is essentially hardwood cuttings with old roots already present but still needing to be protected from the worst winter conditions. New roots grow in spring in response to the opening of winter stem buds. Both in fall and in spring these buds generate hormones which cause the roots to grow. This is one of multiple reasons you don't want to cut tops back at planting, you are reducing the amount of hormones that will reach the roots.

That looks like some kind of fern (maybe something similar to Boston fern, although there are probably hundreds or thousands of different ferns out there) . However it's also possible the fern are in their own pots that are sunk in the soil around the perimeter of that large container so as not to compete too much with the tree roots (and make it easier to replace with new ones or different plants). Normally underplanting citrus is discouraged because the citrus are surface rooters and you want to minimize competition for water and nutrients. Ferns usually grow in shadier locations so the ones in your pic are being shaded by the canopy of the tree the way they are planted.