umm, I am confused by RVRs website. I am thinking that there is no way, a baby band can be in a 5 gallon or 2 gallon pot. That's more like a regular young own-root, similar to what Roses Unlimited sells. In my humble opinion, it is very difficult for me to imagine getting heavy top growth from true actual baby bands. Baby bands stay very delicate in proportion to their size because they've been raised straight from cuttings and are less than a year old. An older baby band may be larger because it sat around unbought, but I would say it's pretty rare to get a top heavy baby band, in my humble opinion? Or am I just confused? But I do want to stress that Linda at Long Ago Roses does not have a greenhouse to coddle her bands. A weak band with weak roots is not going to survive winter. And no puny weak root system is going to be able to support two basal canes like my Viking Queen band. So do I have confidence in a great root system with my baby bands? ABSOLUTELY! You are right in that size of leaves and blooms never indicate a band's health, but what does give a sign is how fast does this band send up brand new growth and what is the texture and coloration of that new growth. All my baby bands leaves were in direct proportion to the girth of their canes so that indicates that the bands were not over-fertilized and manipulated into sending premature growth. In other words they are genuinely healthy bands with a good root system. Another thing you might consider is that baby bands do better pre-potted or cushioned with an "insulation" of potting mix because the potting mix is similar to the soil used in a nursery and it is easier for the roots to push through the potting mix as opposed to clumpy native soils. That way the roots have time to gradually adjust as rain and earthworms gradually seep in the native soil into the potting soil. Plus when the roots are strong and vital they will naturally push their own roots outwards into the native soil when they are good and ready. Sometimes native soils can be too harsh for certain baby bands and baby perennials. I've never lost a baby band from initiating them into my garden, but I did lose weak baby perennials (1/2"-2" in size from American Meadows) when I tried to plant them directly into my native soil without using potting mix as a buffer. All baby perennials that were insulated survived. My other perennial company Bluestone Meadows had very healthy root systems and were much larger, so I didn't need to worry about cushioning them with potting mix, but the ones that I did decide to "pamper" just took off like crazy, whereas the non-cushioned ones took longer to establish themselves.

You need to use a magnifying glass at least 100x power...Get yourself a good one since you can not see them with the naked eye before death is done to webs are created.. I have the feeling you have a bad case of mites and should spray right away. Your leaves look stipled and distorted..That is mites do, not over or under watering. Over or under watering will kill a gardenia quicker than mites and usually the leaves wil turn very yellow.

I'm not sure I'd be overly worried about the JM's. If established in the ground, they should be able to take temps down to -20F pretty well, although some specific cultivars may behave a bit differently. And you can get some winter dieback from upper branches.....but that happens here as well and we never get anywhere that cold! It just seems to be a JM phenomenon, more so with the weeping dissectums than the uprights. I prune out deadwood every spring!

Thank you all! I feel so old as I didnt even see these replies until now as I thought I opted for emails to let me know if I got a response, so sorry about the late reply back to you all. The website has changed so much that I had to actually google the forum again because I couldn’t find my post under my updated account. I should of just asked my 15 year old for help! LOL! I also liked everyone’s comments and hope I at least did that right! I will have to take some pictures of my trees, although some are sad looking which can be embarrassing! I do have some that survived but a few have missing labels, even though I would put at least 2-3 labels on/in each plant, one with a tie label and one as a stick label below the soil line so the sun couldn’t bleach it out ( I think i did a post once on why the silver sharpies are better at keeping color than the regular sharpies). Hey Mike, do you still have the Valentine Pummelo from Logees? We bought ours at the same time years ago, and I wound up getting 2 as I was in CT for a gig and actually went to Logees and picked up a second one. I really wish i had them still, they always looked so good to eat. I hope yours made it and you got to try one, if yiou did, how does it taste? Ponciricusguy, I remember your name too! I thought you were doing some citrus seed planting at the time?! Also thank you Jan, James, Bob, & Hibiscus for your nice messages. Hibiscus, I assume you grow hibiscus? It’s funny as that’s one of a few flower plants I am growing and have several to put in the ground. They have dark foliage with very purple leaves so even if they dont flower this year, they will still look very pretty ;) But mine are hardy bc of my zone. Ok, I hope i didnt miss mentioning anyone who replied to me, but thank you so much everyone for your replies and well wishes. I’ll be sure to now look directly on here instead of waiting for emails ;) Christy