came home yesterday after a weekend of outdoor training, and found my VdB, and Paradiso leaves and buds all most all fried along with some of the figs. it seems the drip line wasn't working. in the morning an evening my wife and the kids took a look, but they looked fine.. by the time i came home on sunday late afternoon.. they were all dropping, but almost dried out and curled. other trees didn't get hit as hard.

it's just one after another this yr.

Sorry to hear that Pete. After all the rain we had it is now turning hot and dry but cool at night. It is 56 here this morning but we
are suppose to get into 85-92 range through Sunday. The crazy weather continues.

yupe. got out the door this morning and it was 57. almost chilly...

Yes, with container plants there is always the feeling like something could easily go wrong which could turn a healthy plant into a plant on life support very quickly.  Currently I only have a backup for one of my varieties.  I'm thinking of putting a lot of mine in the ground next Spring planted densely and kept small for testing purposes.  I may need to move them around later but it seems less risky overall.

Thats how i killed my 5 year old loquat tree. after the rain ended it dried up too quickly.
i think this never happens with garden soil.  nursery mixes always dry fast

Pete,

That is what happened to my trees as well.  I had people watering them every other day when there was several days of heavy rains.  They got out of the habit of watering the containers.  By the time they remembered, the growing mix was very dry and hydrophobic.  Even though they picked up the watering, they never did provide enough moisture to rewet the growing mix effectively.

If the Paradiso you lost is Gene's strain, send me an email.  I think I can hook you up.

thanks james. i watered twice yesterday 1 hr apart to rehydrate the soil mix. some of the live leaves are coming back perky. i'll have to monitor for awhile. in the winter, i was going to take 1/3 of the top off during the root pruning anyway. i might have to heavy pruning with this.

Yeap Pete, I feel you!  My "A" section of my drip irrigation stopped working.  Then I noticed moisture on my brick wall.  One of my "tees" came loose and I have no idea how that happened!  After popping it on, I manually ran the drip for 15mins and my trees were saved. 

It's always something!  I'm still getting rid of coons and possums! I wish my entire collection was enclosed including my orchard.

well, i'm glad the trees live, pete.

That is what scares me with drip! I think I'd rather waste water with standard heads than loose plants.

Pete, sorry to hear about that. Its been a lousy year for me to between the weather and the terrible fig rust it has caused on almost all trees (I caught it to late)

 Peter

Had to content myself with more super-sweet dogwood fruit today.  Spent a lot of time trying to get containers wrapped around the few ripening figs today, and mostly just got bit by lots of mama mosquitoes for my troubles.  Hard containers?  Only works for the larger figs, brebas specifically.  The party favors bags looks like the most trouble free option here.

Shah, I just started using those organza bags. I have found that I do need several different sizes because the most used
bags don't fit the larger figs. I ordered a bunch of multiple sizes.