citress I tend to agree with your hubby on aeration. billl and I agree on just about everything but apparently not on compaction. You did not mention compaction but only asked if aeration might help. My personal opinion is that aeration is a waste of time. I can understand how people make it work, but I think there is a better way (faster, cheaper, easier) to get the same result. First it would help to understand why you thought to aerate. Is your soil hard even when wet? Does water runoff before soaking in? Has it been used for sports like baseball, football, tennis or soccer? Compaction is a special case of soil damage. Before you can compact the soil, it has to be somewhat mobile when pushed on. That requires moisture. The more moisture the easier it is to compact. Once the soil is pretty moist, then you have to have repeated mechanical impact on the soil. That could be caused by livestock (even dogs) or by a sports activity. For example the soil to the left of home plate will become compacted if baseball is played when the soil is moist. If the soil is never moist, then the firmness will prevent the soil from moving on itself resulting in no compaction. The act of compacting the soil is to push the soil particles together and force out all the air. When that soil dries it is as hard as an unfired brick. Adobe brick is made by driving the air out of mud and compacting it into brick shapes. To distinguish compacted soil from hard soil, I believe this is what happens. Soil is made soft by the organic matter in the soil. Organic matter consists of dead organic matter (old roots, etc.) and living organic matter (bacteria and fungi along with protozoa, microarthropods, and worms). When organic matter gets moist, it swells up and pushes everything around it away. When it dries out again, everything hardens up. Picture a sponge which is soft when wet and hard when dry. When the organic matter is moist you can step on it and it will give a little. That is exactly what soft soil feels like. When it dries out again, it will be very hard and will not pass the screwdriver test that billl described. So I'm saying you could have hard soil that is compacted or hard soil that is not compacted. But I'm also suggesting that most home owners do not have truly compacted soil. Well that was probably more reading than anyone had planned to do. Hope some of you are still with us, because I'm just getting to the practical part of this. Several years ago I came up with a way to soften your soil using soaker hoses. It took weeks to do a small area and you had to buy lots of hose. Then about 2 years ago, one of the moderators on another forum tried using the soil softening products found in nurseries. Those are expensive by the gallon, but they worked. Frankly I'm not sure even he thought they would work but they did. Then he set about duplicating the formula for the products. One of the products is basically yucca juice. The other one is basically liquid soap. He combined the two recipes and published his recipe on another forum. With his recipe you can buy the products on eBay and make a lifetime supply for about $20. My approach was to simplify everything and try using just baby shampoo. I was not surprised to find it worked. The way you use it is to apply twice when irrigating with one watering in between the two apps. The app rate is 3 ounces per 1,000 square feet of area. If your lawn is 3,000 square feet, you put 9 ounces into a hose end sprayer and try to spray it evenly over the entire area. When the soap is gone from the sprayer, you're finished. Spray the soap, irrigate about an inch, and repeat in a couple weeks. That's all for the season. Back to the OP, I don't think it will help to core aerate. I think it might help to spray soap if your soil is hard even when moist. Spraying soap is easy and inexpensive. You might try it to see what happens. I would suggest only baby shampoo. I use the generic brand from Wal-Mart. Lagniappe: Using soap on the lawn was first made popular by "America's Master Gardener, Jerry Baker." And he was laughed at in all the forums for his potions to cure this, that, and the other thing. Well, here we are spraying soap on the lawn.

Hi Twiggythefiggy, it usually takes a few weeks to assimilate to the sun. Some folks learn the hard way by putting in sun and they may seem fine until a few days past then all of a sun the burn spots appear and they will eventually all fall or the leaves wilt within a hour or so when first put in sun and stress the plant. Its best to keep in shade then little by little each day put in semi shade with part sun for an hour or two then back in shade, try to do this each day eventually you can put in sun longer and then all the time. What i like to do is give them morning sun for a couple hours im an early riser then back in shade as they progress i give morning sun and late evening sun and eventual full sun. You will be able to tell when there ready for sun but if you see leaves wilt put back in shade as soon as possible either way and by morning the leaves will be erect again from overnight. Martin

I didn't have much luck in finding data on the sales of various hosta, so Plan B. Please review the following list of Hosta of the Year and give your opinion on which best represents the following. 1- Best example of dark blue or green 2- Best example of light green or Chartruese for the French literati among us. 3- yellow 4- Light outside margin / light center (Fragrant Bouquet, for example) 5- Light center variegated 6- Light rim variegated 7- Tri-color 8, 9, 10 ????????? Thanks. This is where I will need help in the project. I will tally the votes and then submit a questionnaire for the people's choices of representative hosta to evaluate the conditions grown and evaluate the results in a variety of locations and conditions to provide a guide to the age old question 'How much sun should I plant this hosta in?' 2014 'Abiqua Drinking Gourd' 2013'Rainforest Sunrise' 2012'Liberty' 2011'Praying Hands' 2010'First Frost' 2009'Earth Angel' 2008'Blue Mouse Ears' 2007'Paradigm' 2006'Stained Glass' 2005'Striptease' 2004'Sum and Substance' 2003'Regal Splendor' 2002'Guacamole' 2001'June' 2000'Sagae' 1999'Paul's Glory' 1998'Fragrant Bouquet' 1997'Patriot' 1996'So Sweet' If you think there is a hosta that would be widely grown and fits a particular niche, then please add it to the list. The object is to get as many examples as possible in order to get the best sampling, it is not a vote on which one you like best. Thanks, Jon

As long as the soil is adequately moist (though the soil does not need to be constantly wet)...full sun, even 100+ F degree sun, is just fine for the vegetative growth stage of peppers. They generally enjoy protection (shade, shade cloth, etc) when they're flowering and fruiting when temperatures are regularly around mid-90s+ F, though. Temperatures in the mid-90s F make some flowers abort without forming a fruit and intense sun on formed fruit can burn the fruit tissue. The leaves handle it all quite well as long as they have adequate moisture (but be sure not to keep the soil saturated with water...it's a bit of a delicate balance in arid areas). While they're still in the non-flowering/non-fruiting stage they do rather well with full sun, even at 100+F. As far as the moisture balance goes for hot times of the year...if you notice leaves drooping during the worst of the day on established plants beyond the very small seedling stage, there's no need to panic...that's natural. If you notice them not perking up after the sun goes down and they're still drooping...they probably need more water than what you're giving them.