I incorrectly stated in my last post my olive trees were planted in Oct 2006. Actually it was Oct 2007. I need to see if I can get any more info from MSU who did the soil test about whether I apply all the ag lime at the same time or not. Gonebananas is right about the limestone gravel dissolving slowly (a large pile has been in my driveway for several years) and it sounds like the ag lime idea if done correctly should eventually get the surrounding soil to the correct PH. If I used the limestone gravel and spread it around the trees it would interfere with any mulch addition so its probably not a good idea. The idea for the azomite came from the website of Santa Cruz olive tree nursery where I bought the trees but I suppose that is less important than the soil PH. They soil here is more clay than sand and doesn't drain as well as it should, another potential problem. Thats why I added compost to an oversize hole when I planted the trees. I was going to add sand but several people told me that would make the soil harder, not softer. MSU and no one else I've found around here is familiar with olives, as they are not being grown by anyone else in Mississippi to my knowledge. Closest place near Austin, Texas. Most people told me that I shouldn't try them in zone 7 and a grower I talked to over the phone advised me to only plant the Mission variety due to the cold temperatures here. A professor at MSU told me that they would start an olive trial next year after I called and told them I have 21 growing here. I'll probably add another 20 next fall. Softmentor, what kind of mulching would you suggest. Right now I have applied pine needles around the trees to keep competition away. What about spreading more compost around each tree over a larger area (10'x10' per tree). I'm not as knowledgeable about gardening as many on this forum, as I've generally planted trees (pines,oaks,etc.) and just left them alone. Thanks for everyone's advice, as I've gotten most of the information on planting here rather than from the sellers or local sources.

Take photo of the avocado or install surveillance camera to see who eat or pluck the avocado. Growing avocado in Singapore

Either squirrels or-,most likely at that size- the tree aborted the small fruits. Avocado's from my experience wont hold fruit until the are at least 6-8' tall. Grafting makes them bloom very young..and every single flower will fall off and any fruit that do get to some size also. The tree's seem to know that they need to have some branch diameter and roots and enough foliage to support the heavy fruits.

Westes: Bay area has a lot of bonsai enthusiasts and several clubs. Google will bring up quite a few in your area. Contact them for advise. But you should be aware that the plant will need maintenance work to keep it in balance and looking good. A large pot will allow the plant to support more leaves and thus will be larger but at some point it will settle to a larger but fairly stable size. You can reduce the effective volume of the pot but by putting ballasts (bricks, large stones, etc). Every 3-4 years it will need to be repotted too. Ken: bonsai draws its inspiration from nature. They just happen to be large trees since there is enough soil mass to support that biomass over ground. Bonsai is a scaled down version where we balance the root mass to the plant size it can support. The biggest difference really is to use a very custom soil and specific root pruning to maximize the "tree" that a given volume of soil can support. Root pruning aims to remove all thick roots and replace them all with fine fibrous roots. The more fibrous roots you have the bigger the plant it can support. The thicker roots are purely structural. So the plant needs to be tied to the pot - all fibrous root, coarse soil and small soil mass cannot hold the relatively biggish plant in place.