That one person relates he has figured out a way to make a particular practice work to his satisfaction is not a clear indication it will work to the satisfaction of others, or that it is even a good idea at all. There are many reasons to limit the use of the same soil to a single season, or two if you need to stretch the useful life of a more durable, bark-based soil. There is no way to deny that particle size gets continually smaller in a soil that is pressed into years of service. As particle size gets tinier, water retention increases. You cannot amend a soupy soil with larger particles of fresh material and claim it drains well and stays evenly moist. Science just doesn't work that way. E.g., how much perlite would you need to add to pudding to make it well-aerated and free-draining? As far as the bone meal, green sand, E-salts, Sul-Po-Mag. and blood meal goes: the bone meal remains largely (almost totally) unavailable in plantings used for a year or two, blood meal is very fast to give up it's N and is very volatile, losing more N to the atmosphere than plants use and releasing too much ammonia to be safely used at soil temps below 55*. The Sul-Po-Mag and and Epsom salts both contain Mg and S, so the only advantage from the Sul-Po-Mag is in the fact that it supplies K. It is already very high in S, so the inclusion of it in a program with E-salts (Mg + S) is almost completely redundant & unnecessary. It would make much better sense to add a half cup of potash/cu ft of soil for the extra K than to unnecessarily raise EC and TDS with unnecessary S and Mg to get a little K. Alternately, why not just use ProTeKt 0-0-3. Or, you could skip all the extra steps & simply use a good fertilizer like Peter's Professional 24-8-16, MG 24-8-16 or 12-4-8, or another very good fertilizer that contains ALL the macros, secondary macros, AND micros in the right ratio, Foliage-Pro 9-3-6. Al

If you buy in bloom you can examine the flowers and check their bits for gender. Otherwise you could order smaller, cheaper specimens through the male. Or there might be a native plant specialist within driving distance that has younger specimens. Discounted potted stock at retail outlets here may not have been fertilized since being received by the grower in spring. Plants can be fairly severely nutrient deficient yet look OK to the unwary. Specimens planted in diminished condition do not establish nearly as readily as those that are in fine fettle, may even dwindle and die after planting instead. Plants that have been in the same pots for a long time may also be rootbound. This is very common in stock sold in my area, although often the worse problems are due to careless handling by growers years before the finished specimens are sent out to retailers. Tightly bound roots near the base of the stem(s) dating from when the once-small plant was left trapped in a liner, band or other small container are often pretty much impossible to rectify once the tree or shrub has grown much larger.

I think "set it back" is a more accurate description than "reset". I have 2 Sagaes that were bought at the same time, same size. Planted next to each other in a holding bed. Then I decided to overhaul all my gardens, so the holding bed became a multi-year bed. They were huge by the time I was ready to move them. I decided to keep one in it's current location & move the other. I had a massive root ball so I know I got alot of the roots, but most likely severed a few. Now, the plant didn't shrink at all, it looked great that year even though I moved it after it was leafed out (I used Ken's taping method). But 3 years later, you can tell one is smaller than the other. It looks like it is a year behind the other one. After 3 years it has not caught up, but is growing steadily. I think it will probably always look a year behind the other one. I don't care, it's growing like crazy and is huge! If I didn't have the other one to compare to, I would never know it was set back a little. Wendy

Sharifa Asma So awesome lol. I have Sharifa that I got as a small band last year. It smells so good.Its a really pretty light pink here fades to white quickly in extreme heat but definitely worth growing. My Olivia is new last summer grafted and already trying to be a monster. Hasnt bloomed a ton yet but is pretty so far. My Young Lycidas is smaller than many of my other 3 yr old grafted Austins. Really pretty flowers. Gets a little black spot here. The branches are more substantial this year and right now it has about 8 buds on it. I am anxiously awaiting these to open. Its its biggest flush thus far. YL needs a few years to get going, I think. Abe Darby...probably everyone knows Im totally in love with this rose lol. I could go on all day about him. The only problem I have with him is that I only have one :p Strawberry Hill is on my list this year. Its so pretty! Abe Darby