My Pachira sits in a VERY sunny window, recieving direct sun pretty much from sunup to sundown. My setup is ideal in that the shelf that my sun loving plants sit atop is located directly in front of a southwest window, with a southeast sliding glass door immediately adjacent to it. This leads to all day sun, and even with that, my Pachira only popped one small leaf out all winter. It has now started to put out small, new leaves. Have no fear, it WILL start growing. As for the part about them being fussy, I woudld have to disagree. Mine has been a joy, for about 8 years or so now. It typically grows about 6 feet per year, which I cut back in spring. Last year though, I put it in barkless gritty mix, and regulated the fertilizer a bit to keep the rampant growth down. The best tip I have though, is to watch your watering. Although they are a wetlands plant, that logic does not apply in container culture. They dislike wet feet, and WILL rot if you overwater. Also, if you grow in bagged soil like Miracle Grow, you will likely find unhealthy roots, especially in the middle of the rootball. This adds to the threat of rotting. Josh has it right in his last paragraph, in fact, he has it perfect. Joe

It's difficult to determine how appropriate a soil is by how the packager labels the product. What's most important is whats IN the bag, not what's ON the bag. It's primarily the size of the particles the soil is made of and the ratio of those sizes in the mix as a whole that determines how well a soil will perform. You can take 3 ingredients that have the potential to make an excellent soil, and mix them in such a way that the soil ends up being a poor choice. The only soils I've seen that I would use myself are 3 of the Fafard heavyweight mixes. I choose not to because I can easily make a better soil for a fraction of the cost. One of the keys to making any commercial soil you buy into an excellent soil is being able to find pine or fir bark in a size that's appropriate as a primary fraction of the soil. If you can find that, life just got a whole lot easier, insofar as the probability of consistently bringing along healthy plants. I wouldn't panic and start thinking you're doomed if you can't find pine or fir bark - we can work with a water-retentive soil if it's not too bad, but a soil based on particles larger than peat, compost, coir, sand, topsoil .... is a worthy goal. Almost everyone that spends any time on this forum recognizes there are usually inherent limiting factors associated with a very high percentage (almost all) of commercially prepared soils because almost everyone is 'amending' them to increase aeration and reduce water retention. This is certainly a move in the right direction, but if I can take you back to the thought that how you combine the ingredients has a very notable impact on the end product. If you DO find pine bark in a suitable size, making the bark the primary fraction of the soil (75-85%) will yield a product much different than if you added 15-20% pine bark to the soil you bought. We can talk more about soils if you're interested - and I'll give you some additional reading that covers container soils in greater depth. If you read it and understand the concept, you've probably taken the largest step forward a container gardener can take at any one time. While you're mulling that over, you can read about several ways to trick excess water into leaving the pot, which of course means more air in the soil (a good thing) and the ability to water correctly. I'm sure you'll have questions or comments - at least I hope you do. ;-) As far as light goes, your plant will probably tolerate the light load of full sun indoors, but the leaves probably won't tolerate the heat build-up unless you have a fan moving the air, so use your judgment. Outdoors, dappled or open shade with morning or late day sun would be ideal, and your plant will love it outdoors. My #1 choice for a houseplant fertilizer is Foliage-Pro 9-3-6, and the reasons are many. I don't want to get you thinking about too many things at once, so when you're ready to take on fertilizers, we can talk about that. The FP isn't easy to find in stores, but Miracle-Gro 12-4-8 in the yellow jug is, and it's cheap. It doesn't work quite as well as the 9-3-6, but it has the same NPK ratio (3:1:2) so it's about the next best thing. It also has any micronutrients you would have any cause to be concerned about in container media. All it lacks that's of concern is calcium and magnesium, but that will be in your soil, so you're covered for now. Questions? Al

Ken, the subject line on here didn't allow for too much description of the kind of farm he has. Yes, it is his Christmas Tree farm. He has Frasier fir, Grand fir, Concolours, as well Blue Spruce trees. I didn't walk onto his property and look at the trees, I just took a look out of a window of one of our guest bedrooms, as it gives a great view of his Christmas tree farm, to see how his trees handled the winter, and saw so many of them are bright orange. I know a lot of people around here wrap their conifers that they have in their yard. This guy has thousands of trees so that really isn't an option. I thought an orange conifer was a dead conifer? I apologize if I am wrong that his trees are goners. I hope, for his sake, they rebud.

You are a lot more tolerant than I :-) Unless it had a strong emotional attachment, I would not bother with the time and effort involved in getting this plant into a healthy condition. Growth is very slow in winter and root rot is hard to come back from. And I do believe the appearance is due primarily to root rot, not the repotting. Just don't have room for ugly, half dead plants in my life :-) FWIW, I grow an epiphyllum that is not an attractive plant. In fact, my sister seldom fails to comment on its appearance every time she visits. It produces long and lanky growth and forms odd looking protrusions. But that is just the nature of the plant itself and the flowers, when produced, make up for it. OTOH, the pachira should be very full and lush looking.