R - Thank you very much for the kind words. There are sooo many gimmicky products out there, some of which don't work at all the way they're advertised. There is just no substitute for getting the basics under control and working in your favor, and I'm always glad to see growers who are able to quickly understand how important that is. Over and over I've watched them catapult themselves forward & ahead of those w/o a sense of direction. I've been meaning to draft and scan some line drawings to my photos so I can post a visual reference that will help clarify some of the things I've said about perched water tables and how to do some simple things that will offer a LOT of relief, so I'll make sure to get after that next week. Let me try this: If you have a soil that supports 4" of perched water when saturated, it will support 4" of perched water in a 55 gallon drum or in a drinking straw. If you had a container with 4" of perched water at the bottom and could cast a little pixi dust that suddenly made the container a foot deeper, the water would simply move down into the bottom 4" of soil. Here's the important part >>>>> IF you attached a drinking straw at least 4" long to the bottom of the 55 gallon drum, ALL the water in the PWT would start moving into the straw. The gravitational flow potential of the water in the drum will continue to force water to flow out of the drinking straw until ALL the PW in the drum has dripped off the end. When the set-up stops draining, there will still be 4" of perched water, but it will ALL be in the straw ...... so how much perched water is that? Almost none!! A wick does the same thing. It 'fools' the PW into 'thinking' the container is actually deeper than it is, so the PW moves down the wick where it will be pushed off the bottom of the wick by the rest of the water in the PWT, until the gravitational flow potential is in a state of equilibrium with the capillary attraction of the wick/soil. Science is a beautiful thing when you understand how to put it to work for you. ;-) You do understand what needs to be done to make the wick work effectively for you. In order to work, the wick needs to either dangle below the bottom of the pot or rest on something absorbent - like the soil in your yard/garden/bed or newspaper, or it could dangle over the edge of a sink or a stand you set up in a shower or over a tub. I wouldn't be too quick to burden yourself with the 'poor judgment' verdict for using vermiculite. I have a bag that was about 5 gallons when I bought it 10 years ago, and it still has about 9 gallons + in it, which shows how often I use it. Usually, we should be doing things to try to REDUCE water retention in our container media, so it's probably hard to make a convincing case for using it in our media. I would reserve the impeachment of 'poor judgment' for use on someone who, understanding the importance of the physical properties of container media as well as the physical properties of vermiculite and it's deleterious effect on water retention, went ahead and used it anyway. So, I think you stand unjustly self-accused. ;-) There are two threads I commonly link new growers to. The first is an overview I wrote to help growers avoid the common pitfalls that become the reasons most of the growers looking for remedial help are here. If they find it helpful and exhibit any sort of enthusiasm about their new found information, I usually offer a link to this thread about container soils. I'm not at all bashful about sharing the opinion that the information in the thread about soils probably represents the largest step forward a container gardener can make at any one time. I know with certainty the information has transformed the growing experience of a LOT of people, I among them, but you can judge that by the response of others. I really do hope you find in it things that will enhance what you're able to take from your growing experience. Take care. Al

Go here and Clivia USA will teach you how to plant clivia in areas with high humidity/rain. http://www.cliviausa.com/planting-clivia-seedlings-and-plants/ Also, they actually sell the plant mix which seems to solve the problem of areas that get high humidity and lots of rain: http://www.cliviausa.com/products/our-own-clivia-potting-mix.html I live in Northern California, ~ 40 miles east of the coast which is pretty dry in the summer in which I use my own home made "soil mix" that drains and drys well for my area. I use 3 parts regular Miracle soil (said to be a no-no, but I cheat), 3 parts cactus mix (Organic mix from home depot in a red and white bag), 1 part sponge rock, 3/4 parts charcoal chips, 1 part pine chips, 1 part bark compost. I soak the bark compost in fungicide before using (since I don't trust it without doing this). I only water once every 2 weeks in the spring/summer until October in which plants get no water at all until the following May, meaning I move them out of the weather elements for fall and winter and don't water (unless I notice wilting). In the summer, plants are under 20X15 shade structure to protect them from the sun (I'm thinking it's equivalent to 60% shade. I feed clivia with 20-20-20 fertilizer, mixed 1/2 strength every two weeks (extended if weather is cool) from May until the end of September. Repot plants every 3 years. They say Clivia are easy to grow, but they are a bit fussy when it comes to the appropriate amount of water they get. They usually grow on sides of cliffs and steep inclines in the African jungles, so they get water washing down the incline, but rarely get drenched. My dad grew Clivia since the 70's (he lived in So Cal), so even though I modified my soil mix from his mixture, I learned from an expert. He even taught me how to save Clivia with crown rot, which if you do research is virtually impossible :-) You can experiment to see the proper mix for your area. You want plants to get water and not dry out too much in the summer, but you don't want them to stay water logged, otherwise, you'll get root and possibly crown rot.

I know this is VERY late - don't know if you will ever even see this posting at all - but for what its worth here goes. I am growing M. koenigii in fiber (fabric) pots. They have been in a mixture of either peat+bark (MM Soil pep in fact) + Growstone (GS2) or peat+bagged mix+GS2 Growstone when I couldn't get MM Soil Pep or anything like it any more. They were originally in a peat+bagged container mix when I started them from seed. It has been 3 years since they were potted up into the fiber plant bags and Growstone-based mix. Some were planted into a gritty-like mix - all of those have either been repotted into a Growstone mix where they are gamely struggling to catch up to their heartier brothers, or - they just flat out died. M. koenigii is a member of the citrus family, a cousin of the so-called "true" citrus such as lemons and oranges etc. I see no reason why what works for my M. koenigii wouldn't work for your citrus as well. You can get the Growstone from a hydroponics store. If they don't have it in stock, they should be able to order it for you. A 1.5 cu ft bag cost me around $35 the last time I bought one, a couple of years ago. That may seem steep at first but the stuff is easily recycled and reused, and it prevents compaction to the point where I've not had to repot for the entire 3 year period and will repot next spring only because most of the plants need to be potted up anyway. You want the middle size - GS2 - not the larger chunks nor the small gritty stuff sold for gnat control. Could be worth a try for you. Handing issues - it is dusty straight out of the bag, and since it is recycled glass, you don't want to breathe that dust. A 99c dust mask from Home Despot should be all you need. You need to rinse the dust off/out of it when you pop the bag open. Put it in a big tub of water and swish it around to de-dust it. If you're reusing/recycling - still put it in a big tub of water and swish it around - the spent organic matter will mostly fall to the bottom and you can just scoop the remaining Growstone into a bucket of bleach water to sterilize. I only sterilize when recycyling, don't see a need for it straight out of the bag. My initial mix proportions were 3:2:1 peat-bark-Growstone but that soon devolved to just mixing it all together until it "looked right". Especially after the MM Soil Pep wasn't available anymore and I was down to just peat and whatever bagged container mix I could find and afford that didn't have any sand in it and at least LOOKED like it had a fair amount of bark in it. It doesn't seem to have mattered, all my curry leaf trees that were initially planted into a Growstone mix at the same time (about 3 years ago) are roughly the same size and robustness. There may be issues of pH but if so, under my local conditions, it doesn't seem to have mattered. Plus all that peat moss is pretty acidic. But then my local water is pretty alkaline at about 9. At any rate it is working for me.

Ken, no tilling till I get the soil tested. It's only $6.00 and it's right by my job. The big pine you see is the biggest tree and another about 20 ft across from it. Lindalana, you are too funny! I only have pine straw in my yard - no leaves. I only have one neighbor that's 83 and she rakes her yard EVERY day after she gets off work. She has pine trees and sand. Ceabhaill, I till for my veggie garden every year (except this year). I will till for my winter garden (moving it to another area). It's raining so much I can't do anything right now. We've had a downpoor for about 3 or 4 days now, then comes the hot weather. My husband thinks I'm crazy when I'm out there in the drizzle.