Notice: I am not looking for help, simply posting something that others may empathize with or find as astounding as I do (we often assume that because someone specializes in something that they really know what they are talking about. I know that's not true, but still am surprised when it happens.) So, I'm still on the hunt for products I can use to make different soil mixes that are a bit faster than what I'm using now. I want to do some experiments both with wicking large containers and wicking small containers, like for small houseplants. I have a friend who works at a florist and I mentioned it to her. She said she works with many of the growers so maybe they would know where to find these products. Today she was over, so we called the grower she thought might help. This grower has been growing flowers in greenhouses for many years. Tracy called, explained I was looking for some things, then turned the phone over to me. The conversation went something like this. "Hi Betsy, thanks for taking time to take to me. I do mostly container gardening and am looking to change my potting mix" blah, blah. "So, I'm looking for the following things, pine bark...." "Oh, why don't you just use my mix?" Great! I think. She's got one already made with bark in it. "What's it made of?" I ask. "Well, it's all natural soil. We don't believe in soilless mixes, especially not in containers. I mean, how are plants going to get nutrients, especially the minors?" "Um, from a fertilizer that supplies the minors?" I offered. "Oh, but that's not the same. You should try our mix." "Thank you, but that's not what I want to do at this time." "But, all of our customers love it! You really should try it." I won't go through the rest of the painful call, but suffice it to say, she didn't have what I wanted, nor could she point me to someone who did. I'm sure I'll get them all eventually, but I'd much rather get them easily in one place since I mostly ride a bike and will have to borrow or rent a car to run this all down. Just hoping anyone else who's had problems with this might get a chuckle out of the story. And, also, pointing out how amazing it is that even people with a LOT of experience can know very little when it comes to science or research.

I'm glad to help; I've been-there done-that with these trees in our local area. And what I've learned from these forums is an outstanding amount of technical information not just anecdotal advice (albeit sometimes all you can provide) esp. from Just-a-Guy above and one other infamous fellow. My Diagnosis From the information provided, I'm fairly certain your tree is undergoing a *very slow* death due to the center/original soil retaining too much water. This isn't totally your fault and the fact it has survived over a year, and even fruited, in a 30" container shows you haven't been extreme in over-watering. However, your tree came with soil that is less than ideal for long-term container survival; in fact, the W&N instructional tag is noticeably lacking directions for containers, only describing in-ground planting. At least half of the soil should've been removed (by gently combing outward) when you potted it. There was no way for you to know this without diligent research. This explains the minimal drain-out even if you water quite a bit. I guarantee if you water the edges they will drain fast but the original soil retains a lot more (although not nearly as bad as an over-peat mix). You may ask yourself "why would they use this soil?"; I've described it below (FYI or for additional substantiation). The situation The yellowing leaf drop is typical for over-watered stressed trees (but remember your case isn't typical like the nursery folks suspect with normal container soil). The fact it grew three fruit, stunted, then held on to them for many months dropping them in spring was your first sign something was wrong (although absent other indicators can appear normal for young trees). Many roots have already begun rotting due to wet-feet. Being mostly shaded in an overly large 30" container has contributed to the problem. Now that we're in 100 degree weather, it's going to really struggle as it tries to replace moisture and breathe. Even so, I surmise you'd have nurtured a healthy tree if you had purchased it from another source that provided container-friendly soil by default. Your Options The hot arid weather makes it very dangerous to fix at this point (especially since Costco won't take it back like big-box stores do ;-) However, wait-and-see increases the statistical certainty leaves will continue dropping and although alive, it will be beyond hope by winter. My advice: I would accept this fate and risk it by attempting a fix now -- remove all the fruit and change out at least half of the original soil. If you'd like instructions on this, I can provide them. This procedure may kill the tree, esp. if done improperly or if it's suffered more than I suspect. But if it survives it becomes healthy very quickly. Alternatively, you can wait it out cooler weather and IF the tree (somehow) hasn't further declined, the same fix is much less stressful on the tree. Further, you can buy a smaller container (maybe a 15") to downsize until then. Assuming you remove all the "extra" soil around the roots (without disturbing them), you will increase the odds of surviving until cooler temps. If it's a wooden slat container, it helps dry the soil and breathe better (but even plastic containers help). However, then you'd have to be mindful of rising soil temperatures in this heat; but your shaded patio may be adequate. Remember, this is opposing advice I'd give someone with a fast-draining soil mix. Asking a retail nursery to corroborate this advice would likely be futile. Sorry for the bad news but here's hoping for the best. Cheers, Chris THE REST IS *NOT* REQUIRED READING... My Original Thoughts it really doesn't feel wet and saturated to the touch... more like moist sandy soil. I was hoping you'd find dry spots with your moisture meter - because in this soil, that would be a more "extreme" situation I would recommend you fix ASAP, even using a risky procedure. Dry spots in a container soil happen frequently under specific (non-ideal) circumstances. When patches of soil dry out, it tends to stay dry (hydrophobic) even if submerged in water. This can happen in several spots through out the container. I've seen it in ALL my container trees that either a) have two different soil textures, or b) are heavily root bound, or c) have worms in the container. I'll tell my kids "watch this" and dump an entire gallon of water on top of soil thereby flooding it, then peek under the soil 1" and it's as dry as a bone. It's a great lesson in how critical properly draining soil is. The W&N Soil The Willits & Newcomb (W&N) tree soil is VERY different than all the other nursery trees I've ever seen. W&N has provided excellent service responding to my email queries (from a home orchardist no-less). Their rep describes "Our trees are field grown and then transferred into containers. The field soil is a sandy loam and then we add a pretty generic soil mix to fill the pot." It has a high sand content but obviously has perlite with some peat but little to no woody material. I've noticed when it dries, the soil becomes almost rock-hard and doesn't absorb water well. But after absorbing it, it softens up nicely and then can absorb even more water. The rock-hard behavior at top soil may be caused by minerals from our local water. I was completely shocked at how much water I could throw at it until it finally drained (having been taught to always water citrus containers until 15% drains out). I could barely lift the 5 gallon container after this. All my Costco trees are from W&N in this soil. All other trees I've purchased from CA nurseries use a fast draining mix that is more like the green and pink bag MG citrus soil. IMHO, the W&N soil is a poor soil for containers long-term. However, it's a perfect soil for growers to use seasonally when trees are retailed indoors and in a non-nursery environment (ie. sold right next to clothes and furniture). It retains a moderate amount of water a very long time and is very heavy so they don't tip easily. It drains well once saturated, then holds the rest (doesn't "leak") but does have tiny gaps to store small amounts of oxygen for the root area. This is ideal for cold, moderately lit Costco, since the tree will grow slowly and need use little water and oxygen while seasonally on display. They need little care and few trees will die from inadequate watering like outside at nursery's in 110 weather or at Walmart. However, by end-season most are yellowing and are stressed -- but alive. The soil also performs well in very hot and arid Fresno when stored in the original black container -- much better than the other trees in fast-draining soil where the root temperatures will sky-rocket and bake. Again, this is all great for the short-term and OK for the medium-term.

this is new jersey, as in northeast coast US near new York. I'm doing work at someone's house. Their goal initially was to just have a no-mow no water or fertilizer lawn. Then I or they pointed out how some of these no mow/water/fertilizer covers can be flowering type things instead of just grass and they liked that idea better. So we set out to find something like that online in seeds or plugs but I didn't really find anything at first. I just recently found a lot of those things are on ebay cheap seeds and should be started indoors over winter and planted in spring instead of planted now in Fall like grass seeds. At first, we kind of scrapped the idea of a flowering cover because they wanted to do the whole lawn with it but don't want it to spread to the neighbors' lawn especially underground and popping up. So we decided to just do a no-mow type lawn like Pearls Premium http://www.pearlspremium.com/ But considering the cost of the no-mow lawn seeds and not using chemical starter fertilizer or crabgrass preventers, it's a gamble to try and plant and hope it doesn't just turn to crabgrass. I have organic fertilizer but it's no where near high in phosphorus to develop good roots quickly like regular starter fertilizer, Organic starter fertilizer I can only find online believe it or not. Instead of doing the whole yard with something like Pearls Premium, It would probably cost them less for me to just till large landscape beds throughout the property and then get seeds off ebay of things like flowering ground cover (that doesn't spread underground like crazy) and things like creeping juniper etc. I'm open for suggestions on thing like this. Once these things are established, they need zero water and zero mowing and maybe a sprinkle of organic fertilizer every few years. They will need a pruning every few years but that's like an hour of work maybe. At the beginning, yes the newly planted landscape beds will have to be de-weeded well until the plants establish and thicken it up. We're leaving about a 8 foot border space from the property line that will just remain how it is now which is basically weeds with some turf grass mixed in. A no-mow lawn still needs to be cut maybe 3 times a year, so these 10' borders will have to be mowed anyway if they're left how they are or if regular grass or no-mow grass is planted there. Once the landscape beds are thriving, they can decide to plant regular or no-mow grass in the border areas. I can do that now since it's the right time instead of waiting until next Fall but we want to see how the landscape beds go first. I can probably just scalp mow the weedy border areas and that will really retard growth there so that omits the whole having to plant grass there but the yard will still look nice because of the landscape beds. Get the idea now? It's about making a nice yard with minimal mowing, watering, fertilizing, and the cost is very low thanks to ebay seeds. perennial ground cover flowering: http://www.pbcgov.com/newsroom/1211/_images/ground_covers_tibouchina.jpg http://img.diynetwork.com/DIY/2014/03/07/CI-Stepables_Groundcover-wooly-thyme_h_lg.jpg creeping juniper: http://s45.photobucket.com/user/mishmosh2000/media/misc/Oot_Picture-7.jpg.html etc

if its growing so lushly... that you have to prune it in august ... then maybe it appeared droopy because it was growing so much ... if so maybe there isnt really any problem you need to solve??? ... too bad we dont have a before pic ... anyway.. in my experience in hot august MI ... a good drink of water in august.. never really hurt anything ... but im not sure it needs constant watering after 2 years ... the real key this time of year .. is usually night temps ... a cool recovery period ... its when nights are hotter.. and there is not much recovery.. that the plants really more stress ... during the day ... i dont know how water moves thru your soil.. so its hard to tell you.. how to water deeply into the root mass ... dig a few 3 to 6 inch holes in there.. and FIND OUT moisture at depth .. then presuming it needs water .. water it.. and then dig a couple more holes.. and find out if your got water down there ... just with a hand trowel or tablespoon.. not giant holes ... ken