I pulled some of my tiniest trees out of the box filled with pine
mulch today. I'd had them buried there, pots and all, for the
winter and they lived through some (for us) Real Cold Weather.
We can still have several more freezes here, but it's unlikely
that we'll have anything pushing us down into the single digits
again (fingers crossed). If we do, they'll come inside until the
weather has passed us by in a day or two.

I still have several small ones that I lifted entirely from their
pots and planted together in a deeper, larger pot of bonsai soil
for the winter. Since they need a lot of work on their roots
before going back into their little pots, I'll leave them alone
for a while.

I have yet to begin mixing new soil (though I've threatened to
start several times ;-) and used up what little I had left this
morning in an "emergency repot" of a large native muscadine
grape. It had been planted in an old terra cotta temporary
training pot, and that pot disintegrated when the temps finally
climbed above freezing after our last deep freeze; I had spalled
flakes of terra cotta scattered for a foot all around it. Looked
like an explosion.

Next week I'll have to make the 20-mile trip to Graco Fertilizer
in Cairo, Ga. for 4-5 bags of Mule Mix. Then I'll buy a couple
of bags of "all purpose" sand from Home Depot, dig into my
compost pile, sift and mix and be ready to go Feb. 15 when the
real potting season starts.

Anticipation is half the fun. ?

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Our life is
frittered away by detail . . . . Simplify! Simplify. -- Henry
David Thoreau - Walden

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