Prairiemoon2, thanks so much for taking the time to give that information! I am definitely not unhappy with the way it looks...I just want it to be cluttered AND healthy! Yes, I'm afraid I've planted a lot of vigorous things, including obedient plant and evening primrose (gulp). I've been astounded at how black eyed susan, coneflower, and yarrow have reseeded this year. I've carefully relocated around 50 seedlings of each type! The yarrow I have in my front garden (also added last year) was over 3' tall before a heavy rain knocked it down. I love my catmint, love the baptisia, love everything, really! I got the baptisia from a local woman. It was huge and took my husband 15 or 20 minutes to dig it up. Root got really chopped and we definitely didn't get the whole root...didn't get any bloom or much growth last year...this year it's been wonderful. I'm getting ready to plow up a large field behind our house and am going to make a massive cutting/perennial garden there. So all little seedlings, garden bullies, and "just don't fit"s will be relocated there in a couple of weeks! The biggest challenge, for me, is the confusion over care. Some things like to be transplanted...some don't. Some like a nice chop mid-summer and will bloom again...some won't. Some can be propagated by root cuttings, others by stem. Some reseed like crazy and others are apparently sterile and can't be grown by seed. Some grow and spread like crazy and others remain in tidy clumps. Some can be direct sown (their seeds), others require stratification. Then there's all the light/soil/moisture requirements, which are different for different plants. It's been a bit overwhelming and I've been doing a lot of reading, as time permits! This has been a wonderful learning experience and I'm really enjoying it. Oursteelers, I was definitely planning on leaving the baptisia. I know the flowers are short-lived, but I love the foliage. I will read up on the lupine...that's one of the ones I was planning to move in the fall. It is - you guessed it - smashed up right against the baptisia, which is getting larger by the day! :)

*Don't allow the plant to sit in the effluent that exits the drain hole. * Do this: 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. * Don't water until a tell stuck deep in the pot comes out barely moist or dry. See below. * Have you fertilized? You should be, regularly. I suggest you use Dyna-Gro's Foliage-Pro 9-3-6. You won't find a better choice. *Repotting into a fast-draining highly aerated medium would likely do wonders for your plants and your ability to keep them healthy. This should be helpful. 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 leads 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. It 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'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends 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 comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al

Shoot to the right looks like it has a stem rot, if you are located in the north conditions you are providing may have now become too damp and cool for this plant. I watered it(on it’s usually time Even though they are indoors tropical house plants located where there is a marked winter season often need much less watering once the cold and dark time of the year starts to set in.

I agree with Paul. I had filled all my trays with gravel (probably 250 trays or more) in the past (I would have to guess 1,500 pounds or more). After a few years, they had dirt, leaves, and other debris caught in the gravel. It wasn't worth it and I spent hours carrying tray after tray of gravel outside to toss. A waste of money and time. The biggest thing on the "big polka dot" begonia is to not water it heavily. Give it some good light and keep an eye open for mildew (the bane of begonias and the big polka dot types are very susceptible to mildew). The other possibility is to get a cane begonia that is not as prone to mildew (the silver streaked or smaller polka dots are fairly disease resistant). Here is my own seed grown maculata hybrid (I gathered some seed pods off my old mother plant which checked out this year). This hybrid is much easier to keep disease free. Two canes that are too big to put under lights so they stay close to a light shelf. The one on the left is a NOID and probably a seedling I let grow. The one on the right is 'Lana'. Both fairly easy. I do not do deep watering in winter unless I was going to go away for a week or more and then I hate that too. Avalanche that I had problems with in the past probably because it didn't get enough light and I kept too wet. Looks so much better this year. Some begonias (mostly) under lights. The left side has lights on from 8AM until 8PM. The right side comes on at 8:01PM and goes off at 7:59AM so I don't trip the circuit breaker. Some of the other canes. Valida on the left (not a cane but shrub or thick stem) and a polka dot cane on the right (no name) that I was about to lose for a few years until I stopped watering it heavy in winter.