Yeah. Un-rotted manure would be like having the horse come over and piss on the plant. Something just occurred to me. I transferred four plants from the starter flat to 4" pots today, moving into my fake version of 5:1:1 (no perlite). But that stuff is very loose. How much of a pain, and/or dangerous to the plant, will it be to move into a larger container when the time comes. With a peat-based soil you get a fairly coherent root ball. Will the barky stuff just fall apart?

What Esther is talking about are NOT Spinout bags, they'd be something like the Hydro Crunch Planters you can buy at Home Depot, not the same thing. I have no experience with these, but I am using Spinout bags, in the ground, under some Arborvitae, and they do their intended job very well. For what Esther's looking to do I suspect the Hydro Crunch ones would do nicely. Pieter

I made some calls Friday to find the best rate for shipping my hostas and heuchies to Baltimore. Busfreighters wanted $625. Fedex wanted $412. I know the replacement cost for my hostababies would be over $700, so just figured Fedex would just be part of the cost of moving. Then, quite unexpectedly, I got a call Friday afternoon from my friends Mimi & Joe. They have been absolutely wonderful to me over the years, helping me with some household repairs I couldn't do myself. Are you sitting down, Hostapeople? Mimi said that they'd be happy to load up all my potted hostas in their large SUV and drive them to my place in Baltimore after I am moved in! And if it took 2 trips to get them all down there, they'd do it. Can you believe such kindness? I was literally reeling after I got off the phone! I had to share this with you. BTW, I intend to place the fabric potted hostas on the wire shelving units I purchased for them, on the balcony. Do I need to protect them from the winter, as they will not be sunk into the ground, and if so, what should I do? Thanks.

first.. remove dead leaves ... if they were in the ground.. i would suggest that is where early slugs are hiding ... second ... you should be able to tell from the weight of the bag... how much water is in there ... if you had a grow bag of dry media ... im just making up numbers.. maybe it would weigh one pound ... if you can barely lift a bag .. and it feels like ten pounds.. well ... you have 9 pounds of water in there... just a little more than a gallon.. if that old 7 pound thing is correct ... what you should do over the summer.. is water a bag ... mark the date.. and not water it again.. until you see the plant wilting a bit ... then see how many days to took to dry ... and then water accordingly ... i think you ought to cut way back.. until you figure out some facts to work with ... until the high heat of summer hits.. i cant really think they need water every day .. especially when they havent spread out their water losing leaves to the atmosphere ... and keep track of spring rain amounts... to use in your equation ... my bottom line.. as usual ... try not to kill them with too much love.. and watering every day in march.. might just be that ... ken