My Canary dates are not overwatered. This winter they came in late (some time in December). Since this time, most have only been watered once. Once date palm leaves start to fold, they want water. Also, they get direct, winter sun in that garage as the garage doors are glass and face due south. Also, when you water palms, you should water deeply and thoroughly--otherwise you are just encouraging surface roots. Yes, the Queens are tall but their containers are very light--using those mock ceramic planters or large plastic tubs from HD. Bought a bunch of them at a good price (in a pleasant marine blue/gray color). I can post a picture of the Queens once they get for the season--some time next mouth if the weather stays on course and the groundhog is right.:) It is actually a lot harder to move the Canary palms--prickly, big, and wide. When it really comes time to moving them out for the season, it's not really that hard. I just lift the garage doors and move them out a few feet--dollies and bungees help. I can't wait to get them out! Are you going to keep the Needle containerized? (Mine are planted out on the south side of the house for their second winter.)

Ryan The center area where the Cactus cover is was covered by a huge Yew bush for decades. From all the falling leaves the soil is pretty black with organic matter but has clay at is base. I want to use more organic stuff this year,Manure,Compost etc. Alex Our forecast has really changed the last 2 days...one day near40F for a high but lot;s of 50s and 60s coming up,if it pans out. The only problem I see with the palms now(or was 2 days ago) is protecting them from moisture if a night of 20F or less is forecast....that has changed now. I will take some pics of the little covers I made for a few Trachys....these are basically just a scaled down version of the former protection that is cheap and easy to make but is only for keeping rain/snow off.. Click for weather forecast

hollysprings, we run the machine about 3 times each day, which is one medium to large, one medium and one medium to small. Those 3 loads are for about 6 bath towels, two of those thicker plus other assorted laundry, usually always 'warm' and 'Cottons' 'Medium'. This is the same way we always used these GE top-load washers. MRB, perhaps the machine is doing that again : On the first machine water came out I was told because a seal on the vertical shaft got worn out, or during failure the machine tried to spin when still in the agitation cycle, or vice versa. On the replacement machine water seems to come out when there is a little too much water above the clothing, usually when we selected large, as I mentioned there are also very large and super load levels which we never use. We are not perfect, and when we judge the clothing level to be higher than it actually is and select the load accordingly too high then it might splash. Again on past machines we never had to worry about that. See it this way, both of us are college educated, I am an engineer, We should be fully qualified to operate this machine. I should not be required to study rocket science for that. None of the concerns is mentioned in the user's manual. I should be able to throw the clothing and detergent in, select what is approximately correct per the users manual, push start, and that machine does its job for 6 years without a problem. In case I pay too little for the machine, it should perhaps do a poor job washing, aka clothes staying dirty, but should not break down every month! Bernd

I thought I would provide an update - Cabinet installer, after refusing to accept responsibility for his actions has been "relieved of his duties" and the problem has been resolved by the contractor. See picture below - still needs some clean up but is much much better. Thanks to all for reassuring me that I am not completely bonkers.