I'm looking for a Hawarthia offset(or pup?)to play around with. I got one offset in a trade recently and it's just a plain green one, but I'd like to get another one to experiment with crossing some day. It doesn't have to a named variety or a rare one or even very large. I can look around and see what I have you may be interested in for a trade. I also have a Ceropegia Woodii I just bought that I could take cuttings from for a trade of some kind and I have two commercial seed pack of mixed cacti, one is opened(unused) because I was curious what the seeds looked like. They're the Ferry-Morse brand. The Packs contain Saguaro, Hedgehog, Fishhook Barrel Dollar Prickly Pear, Desert Prickly Pear, Christmas Cholla, Cane Cholla, Santa Rita Pricky Pear, and Cardon. I'd trade the seed packs any other kinds of seeds, annuals tropicals, houseplants yadda yadda yadda. Post here so I can e-mail you back if you have a hawarthia or are interested in trading for the cuttings or seeds. Thanks.

I'm not Josh, but I grow in a soil similar to his. Are you talking about adding bagged potting soil to your mix? Because most of them are primarily peat moss which isn't soil either. And when you think about it, peat moss is just as strange a thing to grow plants in as pine bark and grit. The only plants I can think of that naturally grow in peat moss are carnivorous plants (and their soil is not helping them much as can be seen by their obvious nutritional adaptation) ;) The composition of the soil particles really doesn't matter as long as they are capable of holding water, air, and nutrients in the proper amounts, and they aren't toxic in any way. In nature soil is a living organism that feeds the plants, but in containers it's just a substrate to hold the water and nutrients that WE feed the plants. As for bark chips, I try to find bags at Home Depot or Lowes that are of a smaller size (most mulch is too big). The bags I've found so far are not well screened, so I sift them to get particles around 1/8-1/4". You can also buy fir bark for orchids in a small size and that typically is well screened (but costs more).

Very nice Ceropegia! The pollinator possible are tiny insects. I am afraid they are not self-fertile. Here is a C stenantha pic I took in summer, luckly, I find there is a tiny insect carrying possible a pollenium on the flower.

From here, it still looks dark in the room, but maybe it's just the way the photo is taken? Are you trying to block the window for privacy? If so, then I would at least turn the plant so the strands hang down either on the window side, or down the side of the shelves. If it were me not worried about privacy issue, I would move the shelves over to the wall on the right, (right next to the window and keep the window open entirely) and have the plant on the corner shelf closest to the window, so I could see the plant better. But then again, I move furniture around according to plants in the room. LOL