yes.. let it be.. as those wise sages aid a long time ago ...

its stressed from shipping from grower.. to seller.. to you.. and that long car ride home ...

i would probably repot it in late summer.. early fall.. when night temps start falling.. so it can settle down and get it roots ready for winter ...

potting media for trees or shrubs would be a bit different than for your water loving hosta ... add some bark fines or something.. to increase drainage ... and air to the roots .. so peeps use the common promix stuff and add a bag of cactus mix ... to make a small batch of stuff that might be good for trees ...

i usually presume that the grower put enough fert in a pot for about 3 years.. lol .. so i would not bother with that anytime soon .. and i would not fert in fall .. you want you plants slowing down for winter.. not all juiced up ... though it might be a bit different for your warmer clime ....

i dont know what to tell you about using your fabric bags ... but you have been practicing with them and your hosta for 2 years now.. so you probably know more than i do ...

if it were mine.. i would probably slip it out of the pot.. and look at the roots .. just so i have some idea about whats going on in there ... and if its badly winding roots.. i might change my mind about when i repot. and i would probably plan on root surgery when i do it .. and in the meantime slip it right back into the pot ....

btw.. how big is this thing.. how about a pic.. so we understand the scale of this project ...

im sure you meant what kind of media.. and not what kind of soil... no mother earth in pots or bags ... thats for others who might not know what you know ...

best self birthday gift ever.. eh... lol .. ever spend one single second missing your old place ... not perhaps friends lost.. but the place and the garden itself ... one second???

ken

Hi, Ken. No, I do not miss NYC one tiny bit. I love living in the Baltimore suburbs. Just waiting, as I said, for one of those little houses to come on the market and I will strike. Meanwhile, looks like my mini heuchie "Frost" won't be coming back. I'm waiting to see who else didn't make it through the winter before making an order to replace them. Every day or so, I am seeing another pip on someone else.

You would have gone CRAZY at the Patuxent Nursery in Bowie, MD. They had stuff I've only read about, never seen in the flesh. They must have had 40 varieties of succulents for groundcover alone. They had many varieties of heuchies (but not any of the Lil Cuties group to which "Frost" belongs), but few hostas. Zillions of varieties of veggie starts, including chocolate cherry tomatoes my friend Mindy was seeking. They had several spectacular new varieties of petunia, one of which I bought ("Blackberry Cheesecake", gorgeous), lots of beautiful shrubs I'd never heard of before let alone seen, many varieties of Japanese maples, spirea, fruit trees, nut trees, just WOW! Mindy found a dwarf fig tree she'd been seeking and many other veggies she wanted. Their indoor succulent selection was tremendous--had varieties I'd never seen in the flesh. They had beautiful geraniums in unusual colors, and every kind of paver/flagstone/sand/river stones/boulders. Anyone who likes to garden would go out of their mind at this nursery, so it was a great birthday trip to make with a friend who also loves plants.

My new crape myrtle is about 2' tall. It has a healthy crop of oxalis growing and flowering in the container's soil, so it's been around in that pot for a while. Should I be concerned that it is not leafed out yet? I am including a whole shrub shot below and a closeup of the top. I am wondering if I should prune the 4" real skinny twigs which cross at points. There are either no buds on them or only one or two.

I am wondering if I should prune the 4" real skinny twigs which cross at points.

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oh my god woman .... I WILL YELL.. dont cut on it either ...

crikey.. are you going to love this thing to death or what ... heres the cliche.. every leaf is a food making machine ... leave them all there untilt eh root mass is fully established ... and once the roots are working.. then doing a little creative pruning never hurt anything ,... end cliche ...

dont transplant/repot it.. dont cut on it.. dont fert it.. and dont worry that is a bit behind perhaps other things in your area ... you dont really know its history prior to you getting it.. it many have been shipped in for sale from a colder clime.. so is a bit out of whack for your clime .. thats a scientific term .... lol ..

it will leaf out when its ready to leaf out.. it may or may not flower ... etc ...

just stop trying to figure out how to mess with it ..

i dont know what you mean by oxalis [good or bad one] .. i cant see it in the pix.. if you want to get rid of it.. take a fork or chopstick.. and gently tease it out of the top of the MEDIA ... if you want it to possibly spread to all your other plants/[pots.. leave it there.. im sure it will ...

enjoy it.. without harming it ...

ken

ps: i cant wait until you have that house.. so you can work in the soil.. and tell me about it.. and i wont be inclined to try to make you quit calling the stuff in the pots soil ... maybe some day ... a boy can dream ...

OK, I just moved it to the front of the wire shelving unit so it can get the maximum sun. Otherwise, I am leaving it alone. The oxalis growing on top is is likely common wood sorrel.

Heuchie Frost apparently didn't make it through the winter :( That was a pretty one. So far, the small hostas getting the most sun and therefore the most heat are all pipped and most have leaves already. The ones on the second shelf, a shadier location, have mostly not pipped yet. Ripple Effect, Paisley Print, Rainbow's End, Marilyn Monroe, Dinner Mint, Blue Jay, among others, have not pipped yet. I always worry until I see that everyone has made it through the winter. I generally see another one has pipped every day or so.

I just mixed up a sugar solution and put it into the hummingbird feeder I got last fall, after they had already migrated. Now is the time for Marylanders to put out their hummingbird feeder, from what I've been told. I will be thrilled to see if I get some ruby throats coming 'round. So will my cat Zizu, but she is never allowed out on the balcony unaccompanied. She can watch and thrill from the living room, looking out the balcony window.