I'd chop 'em all off just above the crown and keep the soil damp, but not wet. WHILE you repot, it's important to keep the roots constantly wet. That means you need to be dipping them in a tub of water at least every minute, or removing the old soil with water pressure. The all-important fine roots dry out and die quickly unless you stay on top of keeping them wet. AFTER the repot, it's important that you keep the soil moist where it's occupied by the roots, That might mean watering every day until the roots start to colonize the deeper part of the pot. Other than that, you'll need to get a feel for how many fine roots you must leave to support the water needs of the top of the plant. I regularly remove up to 90% of a plant's roots during a repot and I almost never ever lose a plant unless it blows out or an animal helps it out of the pot. Al

ooooh yes, Marianne, anyone could make room for an auricula, even the common old border ones. Sympathies, though, I know how hard it is to feel responsible for someone else's treasures. But hey, you must have given lots of stuff away - I know I have....and always, in my mind, is a clear hope that my enjoyment gets shared - absolutely not a test of someone's gardening skills. I shouldn't be speaking for your friend but even so, I would be really surprised if he was likely to come back and check - not least because you are so obviously a good and conscientious gardener. How long have you had the martagons? It is my understanding that they can take at least a couple of seasons before they bother to send out a flowering stem as they have a protracted sulk at being disturbed. Be kind to yourself, Marianne, and give the lilies more time too. If not an auricula, get him some trillium seeds, that should keep him on his toes.

Moni, I do have chickens. I let them out for 6 to 8 hours a day but they are no match for all the hoppers. No matter how many they eat, more keep coming. Here, we often have hopper infestations numbering 10 to 15 hoppers per square yard in the yard and garden areas, but many more per square yard in the pastures. We have 14.4 acres. Do the math. lol I'd have to have a whole lot of chickens to control them all. The chickens eat the hoppers outside the garden. I cannot and do not let the chickens free range in the garden at this time of year because they prefer the taste of watermelons, cantaloupes, cucumbers and tomatoes to the taste of grasshoppers. The tough part with grasshoppers is that no matter how many you kill in a rural area, more just move in from next door. When you have huge hordes of them migrating through thousands of acres of grassland, you cannot stop them all. They are most attracted to anything still green. Obviously, out in rural areas where ranchers cannot irrigate all those acres of native grassland used as pasture for cattle, the hoppers flock to yards and gardens watered by residents. Grasshoppers were bad in NE and parts of northern OK very early this year. I remember that one of of forum members who posts here as Jcatblum had hoppers all over her market crops long before I saw a single one here. It is likely her crops were green and beautiful and healthy and the hoppers migrated to her fields to feed. That is how it is in rural areas. The best hopper control I've ever had was guineas, but we don't have them any more. I miss them terribly, but the heartbreak of getting attached to them and then losing them to predators is too hard to bear so we quit raising them. After that awful year when we had the cougar issues along with a large coyote and bobcat population, and lost 30 or 40 chickens and guineas in one summer (all our neighbors lost ALL their poultry that summer too, well over 120 birds), with us sometimes losing as many as 4 guineas per day......(sigh). I just think there still is too much wildlife here for free-ranging guineas. They are too loud for their own good, drawing attention and predators, and roam too far. Our neighbors never minded having the guineas scour their pastures for grasshoppers, but once the predators knew the guineas roamed in those tall grass pastures, they also knew where to lie in wait and get them. I'd get guineas again in a heartbeat if I could keep them alive, but with all the wildlife management area here...and wildlife that freely leaves it to roam at will hunting for food, guineas are a poor investment for us. Bon, That is so true. We moved here in 1999 following horrible grasshopper outbreaks in Texas for that last couple of years before we moved here. The grasshoppers were just as bad here in our early years. In 2003, a year in which our total rainfall was less than half our annual average, the grasshoppers ate everything they could find....grass, flowers, perennials, shrubs, vines, fruit trees (leaves, bark, fruit) etc. This was after they'd already devoured the veggie garden. Then, when they ran out of their preferred food, they began eating the cotton pillows on the porch swing, the fiberglass window screens, the cotton rag rugs on the wraparound porch, the dogs' blankets in their doghouses in the dogyard, etc. Nothing was safe from them. In an average year, I apply a natural organism, Nosema locuste at hatch time in spring, and it begins a cycle of destruction that helps keep their population very low on our property. In a year like that, I don't really have a lot of damage from them. But, that's with average or above-average rain, and in those years they don't migrate around in huge mobs. In an hot, dry year with drought like we are having now, they are virtually unstoppable. Kill a thousand today and you'll have two thousand rush in tomorrow or the next day to fill that vacuum. Products that contain Nosema locuste, like Nolo Bait and Semaspore are wonderfully helpful, but they aren't a quick kill, and they are most effective when grasshoppers are in the early instars (roughly 1/4"to 1/2" long). It is best to not treat the tiniest hoppers that just hatched, but to wait for them to reach the third instar. Or, put out Nolo Bait several times over a period of a few weeks. That's what I usually do. These products work best for me when applied in April through earliest May, in a normal year with normal temperatures. Semaspore and Nolo Bait have a short shelf life, and the cannisters or bags come with an expiration date printed on them. Thus, I try to wait until right before I need any to buy it. They also work best in cool spring temperatures. Next year, I will buy some in April and put it out whether I think I need it or not, probably weekly or maybe every other week for a couple of months. This year the big hatch was really late here....in June I think. I suspect May was too hot and dryfor them, but I'm not sure, and then all that rain fell in latest May and earliest June and all of a sudden hoppers were hatching everywhere. One way that Nosema locuste is so effective is that it will reproduce in grasshoppers affected by it. Then, because grasshoppers are cannibalistic and will eat each other, the Nosema locuste in dead grasshoppers will sicken and kill those hoppers that eat their dead bodies. So, Semaspore and Nolo Bait are a gift that just keeps giving. Nosema locuste also kill crickets and Mormon crickets. At the same time those hoppers were so bad here, an acquaintance of mine lived on acreage west of Fort Worth, and grasshoppers became a huge problem because she grew really nice pasture grasses for her horses and the hoppers would destroy those pastures. At my suggestion, she purchased a 50-lb. bag of Nolo Bait and applied it. Even though it was pretty late in spring or even already was early summer, she had incredibly wonderful results and was thrilled. Often it appears to be more effective the second year when the disease organism has had time to infiltrate huge numbers of hoppers and spread itself around your property. Dawn Here is a link that might be useful: Info on Nosema locuste

Hoosierbanana, thanks for your response. I thought that perhaps that was the case---that they had a sort of last bastion in the buds and the spinosad/spiromesifen wasn't reaching them. The new spots---and they're not numerous, maybe one or two on a leaf---have reappeared on some of newest leaves; and typical of mite mottling, they do become more noticeable as the leaves grow. The hot weather is probably increasing the activity of the survivors in the buds. Did you use an adjuvant/surfactant when you sprayed? I think I will next time---might help it get in there better. I've also thought about removing terminal buds and maybe wiping out a lot of them that way, but would hate to arrest the growth of these young plants at this juncture. Perhaps that would be the lesser evil, though? Expiration date, applied via sticker, was okay on my bottle---if the seller was honest; and as they've apparently been selling this stuff for a while, you think somebody would've noticed if they were passing off bad product and left appropriate feedback. Anyway, it did kill aphids over the course of a few days---which spiromesifen is supposed to ---, so it's probably okay. Unfortunately, I'm yet to see any predatory mites---just the very bad kind---or much else in the way of life on the leaves. Some folks have suggested purchasing some predators, and that might be worth looking into. They might've indeed been the deciding factor in finishing off your infestation: Avid and Forbid maybe weakened the mites and the predators dealt the final blow, perhaps getting any holdouts in the buds. There sure are a lot of variables involved in fighting a fig mite infestation! If I come through this with any healthy plants, I don't think I'll ever bring in any new ones again. Then again, if I'd wised up earlier and given my cuttings a Forbid/Avid soak before starting maybe I would've nipped them in the bud(s). Who knows? (I know the 1955 Flock and Wallace study used sulfur to 'sterilize' cuttings and plants of mites, but do you suppose they were sure? I wouldn't think a dusting of sulfur---no matter how deadly to eriophyid mites---would reach all those ensconced in the buds.) Sorry for going on at length. Thanks again for taking the time to help out a frustrated new fig grower. Jeremiah