Hi Wiguy!! First of all Welcome!!! I do grow "a few" : ) Plumeria in the Gritty Mix and i have had great results with this mix. Some of my trees will be pruned around the end of March. If you would like to have a cutting or two, i will be glad to send them to you once it warms up so they will be safe in the mail. It is really to cold to send to your area until April. Here are a few pictures of my trees.. I just want you to know that these trees are very addicting!!! : ) Your cutting will probably be One of my first trees that i brought back fromm Maui and it is labeled a Noid Pink (meaning no identification) most of my trees are named varieties and i will send you one that is named when i send them. I just dont know which i will prune until later. Here are a few Places that i have purchased trees from. Cuttings and rooted trees. Rooted trees are more expensive but sometimes it helps to buy a rooted tree and you can have a jump on the time for the beautiful blooms. Cuttngs can take a year or two to develope blooms. Jungle Jacks in Orange County http://www.junglejacks.com/ Brads Buds and Blooms https://www.bradsbudsandblooms.com/ Florida Colors http://www.floridacolors.com/ Here are some of my pics... Royal Hawaiian This is one of my favorites...Lani My Noid Pink Hope you enjoy Wiguy!!! Send me an email!! (My page) Take care, Laura

Hi Josh! Yes, I use FP with every watering. Strangely, the leaves on the main branch have always looked like that. :( I bought the tree at the end of the season and it was a little neglected by then. I thought they would bounce back but never did. I twas hoping that at some point they would drop off and be replaced with healthier ones, but no. Those are the original leaves. I thought for a long while that the tree was not going to make it because of the way those leaves looked. Then it flowered! It appears to have put all its energy into the lower branch and the lemon. I am not too worried seeing how the lower branch looks so healthy. I am just hoping that any new branches and leaves on those branches as a result of my pruning in the spring will look as good as the lower branch does now. I agree with your suggestion. I think I am going to cut back the main stem to just above the second leaf and later remove the lower branch once a canopy is established. I am hoping to train it to a nice standard. But I will wait until later in the spring to do so. I plan on doing a few Espalier and Cordon Apples and Pears in my back yard this summer so I bought a book titled: "The American Horticultural Society Pruning and Training" by Christopher Brickell and David Joyce. (It just came out in paperback in August of 2011. It is an awesome reference! I highly suggest checking it out). There is even a section in there on Pruning a Meyer Lemon whip into a standard, so I am pretty confident that I can do it. :) The descriptions in the book are very clear and helpful. Hope you have a good harvest this winter too! Thanks for the input, it is good to hear from you. Happy new year. ~Jessica Thanks for the suggestion.

An update. After months of cold and damp coastal weather, we finally are getting some warm sunny days here in coastal N. California. The Santa Teresa is now almost 3 months into the new pot and gritty mix surrounding. It's sporting new purple leaf growth on most major branches. My 2 older trees are showing signs of blossoms or new leaf growth now. My previously rootbound Valencia that got bare rooted lost about half its leaves, but has stabilized. It has dozens on young green fruit that are still holding and expanding in size. I did get a fair bit of branch die back over the past 3 months, and I did some light pruning. Because I am starting to seeing signs of the trees thriving , I decided I'd go ahead and repot the remaining 3 older trees last week. This time, I SIFTED the fir bark and Napa 8822 to remove the fines. It was much work, but it makes a cleaner looking mix and doesn't seem to separate as much after watering. One day, I may redo the others (sift them), but for now, they need to recover and thrive some before disturbing them again. I'm hoping the fines don't adversely effect things for the time being - I will be able to compare them with the trees in sifted mixes. On fertilizer, I took advice here and got Foilage Pro (FP). I went light at first then increased to 1 tsp per gallon manually applying by hand once a week. On top of that, because I have a drip irrigation system (no fertilizer feeding into it), I later added some CRF (Osmocote), but then started to get leaf burn. I backed off to 1/4 tsp per gallon FP and the burn subsided, that's when I started to notice all the new growth coming in (after 2 months). My drip irrigation system comes on every 3 or 4 days, and I manually water once a week with the light dose of FP fertilizer at 1/4 tsp per gallon. I'll post some photo when I have more to show - right now, all the older trees are not in the greatest health, partly I suspect the previous soils were old and the roots never penetrated the lower parts of the pots (all except my orange tree which became rootbound). Hopefully, as the months go by, they will thrive in the new soil. The next 3 months will be the sunniest/warmest for us no more coastal fog) until the winter rains start, so I am hoping we'll get some growth. One good sign I did notice- I have some onions nearby that have gone to seed. The winds blows the seeds into the pots, and I am finding them sprouting very rapidly in the gritty mix. It must be very good on any fine/delicate roots.

Capoman: I keep thinking about getting more soil and I drive by the store every day. I don't think I will sleep right till I do pot up to the 3 gallon. Going to stop there later! And as far as the 511 mix. I am scouring my local shops to see what I can scrounge up..not going good. Thanks for chiming in. Bill: The summers get brutal here and I also picked up some lava sand to top mulch and then cover with pine chips. Just getting ready for the summer and trying to slow down evaporation. Everything helps and since I am planning on moving sometime around August, containers are my only option. Bruce: I guess I have to get out of the bonsai mindset. I am in the habit of root and top pruning my other plants because they are in containers as well. The bonchi fascinates me. With the 1 gallon and soon the 3 gallon containers, my plan was to use the thick green gardening steaks punctured through the bottom drain holes of the pots in an attempt to steak down the plants and use the bamboo with green gardeners tape to create a mock tomato cage style holding pattern to some what control the growth. I do not mind doing the additional work. My Espaliered trees require a lot of work so it is a nice break to get to play around with the pepper plants! :-)