Hope, I didn't meant to alarm you! LOL... It may not be that at all. But I always check my plants when the leaves don't look right...just in case. And since you just brought this baby home, a thorough inspection wouldn't hurt. To check for spider mites, here's a simple, quick method: Place a blank, white piece of paper under a leaf of your plant and shake, shake, shake or tap, tap, tap the selected foliage. Small specks of dust and debris will fall onto the paper. Get up close and personal with the fallen debris on the paper and watch carefully (make sure the lighting is good where you view the sheet). Dust and dirt donÂt move but mites do! If spider mites are present, you will see tiny specks moving across the paper. Check more than one leaf, even healthy ones, to make sure your plant is mite-free. This simple but useful method is a technique that helps detect the presence of mites that canÂt be otherwise seen by the naked eye. You can also check the plantÂs leaves, stems, axils, etc, for fine webbing, which is a sure sign of mite infestation. Again, this is just a precaution! And it's good to rule out any pests for your plant's sake.

Prune hybrid roses but not Old Garden Roses right now and not young ( under 3 ) OGRs . This is certainly debatable and a personal preference for each rosarian . No pruning of perennials for several months !! Last year taught us that some plants return from the dead and return better than ever . Annuals and veggies are an entirely different matter . Those tomato and cucumber plants will probably not return no matter how long we wait .

The roots go a lot further down than an inch, and it doesn't look like that pop bottle has any drainage holes. I still suspect they are too wet most of the time, and probably are not getting enough sun as another poster noted. Lavender is originally from the Mediterranean region, along the coast. Yes, they manage to grow a lot of lavender in England - it is still a Mediterranean plant, however, that grows best in dry, chalky, poor soils. I think the Brits just tend to be better gardeners on average than the average 'merican, LOL! Plus they have lots of chalky coastline ... think the White Cliffs of Dover ... Lavender does NOT do well in soil that is moist all the time. If they are doing "better" since you started daily watering, I shudder to think how they were doing before, because those plants are not doing anything like "well", especially given that you started those plants way back in the spring. Here's a picture of a potted lavender that is doing well: Potted lavender advice Lavender needs 8 hours of sun a day, at least. Full sun in the garden is what they are talking about there. I don't think your plants are getting near that on your balcony. It will only be worse sitting near the window there in your kitchen (or where ever you plan to put them over winter). I understand that you are in an apartment and have VERY limited access to light and space for growing plants. Lavender is a very challenging plant (so is rosemary) for growing indoors. I've never had any luck growing either plant indoors myself. I'm not saying it can't be done; but it is a challenge. Your setup is not adequate to the task at this time. You're not getting nearly enough light; the soil mix in your pop bottles looks too heavy (lavender does better in a soil-less mix, in fact I think potted lavender may be a prime candidate for some version of Al's gritty mix). There are no drainage holes that I can see in that pop bottle and you are overwatering if the soil is never allowed to dry out. Lavender also like an alkaline soil. Adding some lime could help. ESPECIALLY if there is any peat moss at all in your soil mix, or if you are using pine fines as mulch or a soil amendment. So - alkaline soil, allow the soil to dry between waterings - not totally since these are first year plants but it shouldn't be wet or even damp all the time; and it loves the heat but dislikes humidity (hence it does pretty durn well in our dry near-desert conditions in N. Nevada). However at this point in time I hold out little hope for the survival of your plants over the winter, given their stunted condition now. I'm not trying to be discouraging; go ahead and try, you've come this far with them. But you need to repot them in a soil-less mix more suited to the plant and be prepared to supply extra heat and light, else they will not survive. Here is a discussion and fairly clear description of how to make Al's gritty mix. Personally I have found ALL the ingredients difficult to impossible to find. Turface, in particular, I have never been able to lay hands on - and though it is the virtually same stuff as certain types of cat litter or adsorbent, it isn't ALWAYS the same stuff. For instance, Napa Floor Dry has been touted as a replacement - but there are TWO KINDS and only one of them is suitable for this purpose. And I'm too tired to go dig up the links that tell you which is which. Also, having to screen and discard large portions of your ingredient isn't exactly lending itself to being affordable - let alone easy. That said - for this particular instance, I think gritty mix is your best bet - if you can only find the ingredients and get them properly screened and mixed.

I have a stucco house - I feel your pain! Sounds like you are in a location that does not have a lot of stucco homes, hence the lack of local expertise. The trick is finding someone who knows what they are doing. Traditional three coat stucco systems are not hard, just time consuming. Does your historical society have a reference? Are there are other stucco homes in the area? If so start asking other homeowners who they know who does work. Anyone doing historical stucco would get their supplies thru a concrete supplier and they might have references. I taught myself how stucco myself after we restored our upstairs dormer. There is a lot of info out there - some parts of the country still do a lot of stuccoing - you just have to dig around. I ended up finding a guy who repairs the stucco for a local large university. He was very helpful - which formula was used on my house, his opinions on stucco wrap vs roofing felt, etc. Since it sounds like moisture is your nemesis in your area (mine too) so make sure you really research how to keep your substrate dry. (hint: it does not involve spraying the stucco directly onto the sheathing.) Try this link http://www.cement.org/stucco/faq.asp as a starting point. Chances are that whoever does stucco for you is a smaller company or one man outfit so it might take you a while to find someone. Just make sure you know what you want and how you want it done before you commit to someone. The following link has a good background on stucco and offers some help in determining what kind of stucco you have. Here is a link that might be useful: historical stucco