You're welcome. Thanks again, for being so kind. Some thoughts I offered in another, older threads on this forum. They should pretty much answer your question, and may even be quoted in the text somewhere up this thread (if so, I apologize for the redundancy): In my estimation, the only case to be made for reusing container soils is one of economics, and you'll never find me argue against making that decision. If you can't afford, you can't afford it. That said and setting economics aside, you might decide to reuse soil for reasons other than economical. Perhaps the effort involved with acquiring (or making your own) soil is something you might not wish to go through or be bothered with. In any case, it would be difficult to show that soils in a more advanced state of structural collapse can somehow be preferred to a soil that can be counted on to maintain its structure for the entire growth cycle. So, if the economic aspect is set aside, at some point you must decide that "my used soil is good enough" and that you're willing to accept whatever the results of that decision are. All soils are not created equal. The soils I grow in are usually pine bark based & collapse structurally at a much slower rate that peat based soils, yet I usually choose to turn them into the garden or give them over to a compost pile where they serve a better purpose than as a container soil after a year of service. Some plantings (like woody materials and some perennials) do pretty well the second year in the same bark-based soil, and with careful watering, I'm usually able to get them through a third year w/o root issues. Watering habits are an extremely important part of container gardening. Well structured soils that drain well are much more forgiving and certainly favor success on the part of the more inexperienced gardeners. As soils age, water retention increases and growing becomes increasingly difficult. If your (anyone's) excellence in watering skills allows you to grow in an aging medium, or if your decision that "good enough" is good enough for you, then it's (your decision) is good enough for me, too. The phrases "it works for me" or "I've done it this way for years w/o problems" is often offered up as good reason to continue the status quo, but there's not much substance there. I'm being called away now, but I'll leave with something I offered in reply on a recent thread: "... First, plants really aren't particular about what soil is made of. As long as you're willing to stand over your plant & water every 10 minutes, you can grow most plants perfectly well in a bucket of marbles. Mix a little of the proper fertilizers in the water & you're good to go. The plant has all it needs - water, nutrients, air in the root zone, and something to hold it in place. So, if we can grow in marbles, how can a soil fail? Our growing skills fail us more often than our soils fail. We often lack the experience or knowledge to recognize the shortcomings of our soils and to adjust for them. The lower our experience/knowledge levels are, the more nearly perfect should be the soils we grow in, but this is a catch 22 situation because hidden in the inexperience is the inability to even recognize differences between good and bad soil(s). Container soils fail when their structure fails. When we select soils with components that break down quickly or that are so small they find their way into and clog macro-pores, we begin our growing attempts under a handicap. I see anecdotes about reusing soils, even recommendations to do it all over these forums. I don't argue with the practice, but I (very) rarely do it, even when growing flowery annuals, meant only for a single season. Soils don't break down at an even rate. If you assign a soil a life of two years and imagine that the soil goes from perfect to unusable in that time, it's likely it would be fine for the first year, lose about 25% of its suitability in the first half of the second year, and lose the other 75% in the last half of the second year. This is an approximation & is only meant to illustrate the exponential rate at which soils collapse. Soils that are suitable for only a growing season show a similar rate of decline, but at an accelerated rate. When a used soil is mixed with fresh soil after a growing season, the old soil particles are in or about to begin a period of accelerated decay. I choose to turn them into the garden or they find their way to a compost pile. Unless the reasons are economical, I find it difficult to imagine why anyone would add garden soils to container soils. It destroys aeration and usually causes soils to retain too much water for too long. Sand (unless approaching the size of BB's), has the same effect. I don't use compost in soils because of the negative effect on aeration/drainage. The small amount of micro-nutrients provided by compost can be more efficiently added, organically or inorganically, via other vehicles. To boil this all down, a container soil fails when the inverse relationship between aeration/drainage goes awry. When aeration is reduced, soggy soil is the result, and trouble is in the making. I've mentioned before that I don't post here to get people to convert to a particular mix or blend of soil. I post what I know will work very well for anyone who can get appropriate ingredients & modify the mix to suit their climate & other cultural conditions. If you use a mix that guarantees good aeration for the expected life of the planting - you're in good shape. Most peat based mixes will not work well in extended life plantings. Conifer bark based mixes, on the other hand, retain structure for much longer periods. If you still have questions, please don't hesitate .... Al

I probably should have mentioned in my original message that I've been keeping my tree in the living room....could that be aiding the soil's prolonged dampness by not getting enough circulation? Absolutely. It's warm enough here to keep the tree outside, I just like having it inside and smelling the blossoms and lemons. Nothing wrong with that. I look forward to winter (did I actually say that????) when I can see and smell the tree indoors as well. For now, I've put it on my patio to help it dry out, and I think tomorrow I'm going to move it to CHC. Is CHC Coconut husk chips? If so please consider a faster draining mix. CHC is like peat in terms of water retention. It's great for that, but it breaks down quickly and ends up not holding enough air for optimal performance. What is your tree in now? If it is a peat based mix moving it to a CHC based mix isn't likely to help it much in terms of how long it stays wet over the course of a year.

Female Gingko trees stink. If the root system is underdeveloped for the above ground growth the tree will produce smaller and less leaves. Your tree is still small enough to reasonably suggest that there may be an imbalance with root development and top growth. How was the tree planted, do the roots grow in a manner that they choke the root ball instead of flairing out so all the roots have plenty of room to grow and spread? If the roots flair and are not choking the rootball, then look into feeding the roots to help the tree balance out its root system with the tree's top growth needs.

"Is that correct for Gingko (sp) trees in general if the tip of the leader has died?" That is correct, for trees, not just Ginkgo "...would be safe to paint the trees with white tree paint in the summer to protect them?" Tree trunks can be painted with watered down paint for more than one reason, but environmental adaptability is NOT one of them. Painting the tree will not make it any more heat-hardy and will probably only succeed in making it look weird. "...the soil was heavily fortified with compost." I hope you're not saying that you heavily amended the backfill soil, with compost, when you planted your trees! If you did, that may be part of the problem. Amending soil is almost never a good idea when planting trees, and organic matter should generally be limited to less than 5% of soil volume. "Lastly, I wanted opinions about fertilizing." As has been said here a million times, trees rarely need fertilizer and should only be fertilizer when either a soil test or visual indications point to the need for such.