If it's a bright yellow, it could be a variety of mushroom that commonly occurs on potting soil. If so, you'll know in short order because the things grow very fast. If it is a mushroom, get rid of it ASAP. It won't harm the plant, but spores are produced quickly & you'll have repeat performances at regular intervals. Let us know what it turns out to be . . .

I was originally planning to put the plants directly in the ground, because I though that would be easiest. I live near Glendale, so we got some of very cold weather last year - though not as bad as just a little further east like the Huntington Gardens. I also have a concrete driveway adjacent to this area, so it sounds like Sanseviera have the potential to do some real damage. I originally thought of using the common Sansevieria because they have an upright clean almost geometric shape. We have a 60's modern house and though they would work well for the area we were thinking of planting. I had also seen them used in and around number of modern houses quite effectively. But now that I think of it, the the Sans were almost always in large planters. I know this might not be the right forum, but does anyone have any suggestions for a clean shaped upright plant, that might not cause as many potential problems as the Sans? I am preferrably looking for plants with low water requirements and are not spiky like agave. Thanks. Naveen

Hi, Raquel! Please don't put worm castings or vermiculite in the pot of any plant. Worm castings = too muddy. Vermiculite collapses under the slightest pressure when wet. Vermiculite can be handy for starting seeds, but isn't suitable for a more long-term planting. Both castings & vermiculite will cause the soil to have insufficient oxygen, inviting root rot (overwatering.) Roots need oxygen & moisture at the same time to function and stay healthy. Look for something that is much more chunky/fluffy/airy/porous, so roots won't rot. Unglazed clay pots can help enormously if you are prone to "overwatering" plants. These 2 posts can explain in much more detail: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1490818/good-growing-practices-an-overview-for http://forums2.gardenweb.com/discussions/1497307/ukeeping-u-them-looking-good

They make a number of products designed to provide stability for plants that show a tendency to laying over when they get a bit top-heavy. They will work better than many other methods of providing stability because they change the fulcrum point to a spot well above the soil line which reduces and in some cases nearly eliminates the leverage that causes plants to topple in the first place. Whether or not you should use a large or small pot depends almost entirely on your choice of medium and/or any methods you might use to reduce the amount of water a planting can hold, and there are several very easy trick that employ simple science to achieve that end. One thing you want to avoid is using a pot so large that soil at the bottom of the pot is 100% saturated after a thorough watering. This is especially true if you choose a pot made of plastic, high-fired ceramic, or other materials that do not allow gasses to pass through the pot walls. When you situate plants with poorly developed root systems into a water-logged grow medium, roots are extremely reluctant to colonize the saturated soil. This causes anaerobic composting of the grow medium, the result of which is a grow medium that is saturated for extended periods, accompanied by waste gasses (CO2, H2S [sulfur dioxide], methane, .....) that displace oxygen and fill soil pores above the saturated area. Any practice that limits the roots' essential access to oxygen should be avoided because roots can't function w/o oxygen. If you're using a chunky, porous grow medium that holds little or no water between soil particles: there is no need to fret about excess (perched) water and its deleterious effects, that type of medium is extremely rare in the retail market. If you choose a medium that does hold excess (perched) water, the more perched water it holds, the more difficult it is to deal with. This is especially true as we go into winter and the plant's usage of water from the soil drops precipitously. I'll step into your shoes for a moment to describe how I would approach this issue. I would use a low-fired clay (terra cotta) pot that holds 1-2 cups of grow medium. I would fashion a wire stake to provide stability. I would use a wick through the drain hole to markedly reduce the amount of water the planting can hold. The wick works by increasing the gravitational flow potential of water in the pot by "fooling" the water into "thinking" the pot is deeper than it actually is. As water travels down the wick "searching" for the pot's bottom, the weight of the water in the soil and at the top of the wick pushes water at the bottom of the wick off of the wick. For the wick, you can use a single strand from a 100% rayon mop head, a strip of cloth from a man made 100% rayon chamois (automotive department), or a poly closure used to securely close bags of onions or fruit. Or, I would use this simple trick to ensure ALL excess water is removed from the pot: Newton's First Law For conventional container culture, it's a given that saturated/partially saturated media rob roots of the oxygen they need to function normally and efficiently. At best, soil saturation robs your plants of immense measure of potential in areas like growth, appearance, yields, ….. At worst, plants unable to cope with the strain of drought stress caused by saturated media will succumb to it. This isn't a 'scare tactic, it's a very simple and straightforward observation that will be difficult to disagree with a straight face. Newton's First Law of Motion states that an object will remain either at rest, or in motion at a uniform rate and in a straight line unless acted upon by an external offsetting force. In this case, we will designate the 'object' as excess water in your potting medium. At risk of my being redundant, the 'law' can be seen as a simple statement about inertia, that objects will remain in motion and in a straight line unless a force acts to change the motion. To put the law to work for you/your plantings, you should water to beyond the point of total soil saturation - so the medium has been completely saturated and at least 15-20% of the water you have applied has exited the pot. Unless your soil is purposefully constructed to eliminate all/nearly all excess water, it's extremely probable, when the pot has stopped draining, there will be too much water in the potting medium for the plants' liking. To eliminate this excess water: immediately after a thorough watering, hold the pot in one hand over the sink, lawn, or over-sleeping significant other and move it downward, then sharply reverse the direction to upward. You'll immediately note that a good measure of 'excess' water will “continue downward in a straight line” and exit the drain hole. The sharper the reversal of direction, the more water exits the drain hole. When you have repeated the exercise until water no longer exits the drain hole on the reversal of direction, you will have eliminated all excess water and your plants will regard you with a newfound sense of awe. Finally, it's crucially important to make sure your watering intervals are monitored to ensure they are appropriate: Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need plenty of air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support the kind of root health most growers would like to see; and, a healthy root system is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips in order to avoid over-watering leads to a residual build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil from tapwater and fertilizer solutions - which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma and creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell' (more reliable than a 'moisture meter'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) works better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half or in several pieces, depending on how deep your pots are. Sharpen both ends of each tell in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell's tip comes out nearly dry. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al