Hi Terri, Ok, I'm glad you know what I mean. Often people save the seeds not realizing that sometimes they never got fertilized. It is odd too, some varieties seem to have lots of ripe seeds while others have hardly any. I just collected seeds of one variety that blooms fairly early. I'm watching another that blooms a bit later. They are almost ready. My sweet autumn is just a baby, so I don't know about it in particular. Remy

I've placed a few dozen Pentair variable speed equipment sets into service since they came out. The oldest is probably 4 years old this summer. I had my best luck with the 4x160 controlled by an Easy Touch 8. The VS3050 controlled by an Intellitouch 7 or 9 was way over my buyers heads in grasping the technology the controller offered. They had difficulty following the menu's for configuration. I'll admit they offer a bunch of avenues but IMO it's total overkill for residential pool customers. I only had a few service calls on the units and have no idea what the problems were because I just dispatched the call to my local Pentair rep and they handled them. To their credit they were a lot more prompt than they used to be back in the late 90's and early new millennium. I switched to Jandy in summer 2000 because of the poor after the sale warranty support from Pentair back then. It was a shame 'cause I was a long time dealer for PacFab before Pentair took the line. I've only placed 7 or 8 of the new E-pump equipments sets from Jandy and had 2 service calls on them, one I ran was a cracked impeller and the other I'd have to ask my super what the problem was. I suppose I'm the last builder on the planet to jump on this bandwagon, I still prefer a 2-speed for those looking to enjoy electrical savings, guess I'm just old school. This pool isn't going to be an E-pump, we were working within a budget and I had to achieve as many of the things they wanted in that select amount. See ya, Kelly

So the 'repot' you undertook in May ..... did you bare-root the plant, remove a notable fraction of the heavy roots not attached to the base of the trunk, and entirely change the grow medium; or, did you snip a little off the sides/bottom of the root mass, slip it in another pot, then fill the voids with fresh potting medium? I ask because it's hard to believe the plant would need another actual repotting session if the work you did in May was a full repot. There are good times and not so good times to repot. If you live in the USA somewhere other than the deep south, the 2 weeks prior to the summer solstice would be about the best time to repot because A) the plant should have had sufficient time to recover from running on empty (depleted energy reserves due to low light over the winter) and B) it will be approaching the point in the growth cycle where it's ability to make food/ create energy is about to peak (Jun 21 - summer solstice). Repotting in fall, winter, and especially early spring after a long winter and limited light loads means a much longer recovery and the plant's limited ability to defend itself from insects, disease pathogens, and abiotic pathogens. I have repotted maybe 100 ficus (any species or size) for others, and I probably have 40 ficus, (maybe more) of my own that get repotted every year while small, and every other year after they have developed to whatever size I think is appropriate to begin serious work on them. One thing I can say is, your tree cannot be in a position so tenuous that a repot is absolutely necessary if the tree is to survive until next Jun. If the tree is in any serious jeopardy, problems are far more likely to develop from whatever bottom-watering arrangement you have chosen than from tight roots. Habitual bottom-watering is usually accompanied by the insidious increase in the level of dissolved solids (salts from tapwater and fertilizer solutions) in the soil solution, which limits the plant's ability to take up water and nutrients, even if roots are awash in a sea of plenty. Bottom-watering can quickly lead to problems related to an increasingly skewed ratio of nutrients in the soil solution, which causes antagonistic deficiencies (too much of nutrient X interfering with uptake of nutrient Y. My suggestion would be to start top-watering, using enough water to fully saturate the grow medium with at least 20% of the total volume of water applied exiting the pot, carrying any accumulating salts with it. Make sure the water that exits the pot has no pathway by which the salts in the effluent that exits the drain hole can make their way back into the soil solution. The pot should be raised above the bottom of the saucer and should never sit in the effluent that exits the drain hole(s). Al

Im busy dragging pots in and out of the garage, sigh. Once I spotted them pipping I decided I had to put them in some sun so they didn’t etoliate. Now they are MUCH further along than i wanted. Ah well. These should all go in the ground this year. The beer can in the pot with Viking Ship is just for size reference 😉 - that sucker is HUGE.