How giant are you talking about? If it's that big, straight gravel might be your best bet with the pot sitting in a shallow container that constantly has an inch or two of water in it. Basically growing it in passive-hydroponics. You can also mix long fibered (uncut) sphagnum moss with the gravel to wick water higher into the pot. What kind of pot are you using? This method works better if you drill a few holes in the sides of the pot to improve air circulation.

Cactus & Keiko, thanks, you have all reassured me that things are alright with my big baby. Cactus, I tried to not let it get below 55 on the cold nights, it usually stayed more like 68. I built a frame and double layered it with plastic dropcloths, then tucked a digital thermostatic control electric heater under there with it. I just had to be careful to turn off the heater and open the plastic on sunny days. I can tell my family thinks I'm a bit nuts to baby this plant like I do. They're more of a farming mentality than a gardening bunch. But this plant gives me so much joy in the summer that I think its worth it. When I got it from NSE, I was also skeptical about its small size. But I practically shoveled heat, light, and fertilizer down its 'throat' and it couldn't help but grow. My hubby would make comments related to that big plant from Little Shop of Horrors. "Feed Me!" I have a small koi pond. When I do water changes and filter cleaning, I water my plants with that water. All the sludge from the bottom of the filter box would go directly on top of the borneo's soil. Yum-Yum! Keiko, I hope its trying to make a baby! It made 2 babies last year, one of which I traded to another gardening friend. I hope it will get even bigger this year because its starting with a huge bulb, wheras last spring there was hardly a bulb at all. I'll go right now and mound up some yummy stuff around the bulb. I was a little worried about the effects of bright direct sunlight on it. Again, thanks!

michaelg, Thank you for your quick reply. Your point about peat is very helpful as previously I put it into the mix dry then into pot with the plant and flooded the pot; obviously the wrong way. I shall use the correct method in the future. Initially I will give the Tapla Gritty mix a go with two 20+ gal terra cotta containers as I already bought the Turface MVP (which I cannot return), chicken grit, and small orchid bark. I always tell my children to read up first and buy second; I should follow my own advice. I do have further questions for you, one is the small orchid bark is for the most part the correct size, some pieces are larger, is this an issue? The second is if I do take them down to bare root what is the best way? Using the hose at full pressure to remove the soil or what would you suggest? I noticed in one post that the Turface has to be charged with "P" or it states it might cause "P" deficiency, I thought of soaking the Turface MVP in a high bloom solution first to get it charged up so this is not an issue. I wonder if you or anyone else encountered this issue. What pH meter do you recommend? A link to the site would be helpful. Lastly I did get one thing right, I realized "It is the soil stupid", me previously being the stupid person. I amended my very heavy garden clay soil, known here as LaC3 (Lahaina Clay Soil 3), using the "Grow More Vegetables Method" this has produced astonishing results, here is a case where I did read first. But digging out one section of 40 x 5 we found the builders of the house a dumped large amounts of rock which I screened out down to 2 feet. Fortunately I have very nice neighbors who all came and helped, it took three days digging into rock hard compacted clay, I finally had to take a "Back Hoe" to it, we got very tired of digging. Oh for my old Georgia soil. This truly was a case of a $50 hole for a $15 plant. The end result was the roses took off like a rocket, growing from beat-up little local nursery roses, and I do mean beat up, into 2' to 4' beauties, over the last 4-5 months. I now get daily compliments on the bed and they are still growing strongly. Needless to say the neighbours are delighted, a little piece of England or maybe the South of France in Honolulu. Once again thank you and as we say here, Aloha

Diane, I don't buy the kind with the little holes perforated in it because my experience with it was exactly the same as yours. I spend bigger bucks (and, yes, it is painful to spend the money on it, but the hours of weeding that I don't have to do makes it worth it) on a woven landscape fabric that does not have those little perforations in it. It is slightly thicker than that stuff, but almost looks like felt...doesn't feel like felt, but looks like it. I buy it in big rolls at CostCo....I think the roll is 4' x 200'. I buy two rolls a year most years, so every bed doesn't get it and every bed doesn't get new fabric every year. By recycling it into pathways after I take it off of a bed, I get about 5 years usage from it, so that's not too bad. If you let them, weeds still can grow underneath it or on top of it, but I yank them out before they get that well-established. The woven type is 10,000% better than the perforated type. I generally use the landscape fabric in beds that have tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, okra, squash and melons. I don't use it in beds that have carrots, beans, lettuce, spinach, potatoes, etc. because I'd die of old age before I could cut all the little X's to plant through. I've done corn both ways. Last year I didn't use landscape fabric in the corn bed, and had to fight horrendous amounts of bindweed. This year, I used it, which explains why it took me 5 years to get all the corn planted but I've barely seen any bindweed so far. The landscape fabric we use works great as long as you don't let anything grow up through it from below or down through it from above, because once the roots penetrate that fabric, they're really hard to get out. In the year that I used that landscape fabric stuff Wal-Mart and other places sell that's perforated with holes "to allow the water to flow through", it was like using nothing at all even though I had mulch on top of it. That had to be one of the most useless gardening products I've ever purchased. Oddly, I don't use landscape fabric in my flower beds, which many people do, because so many of my plants reseed (and I want them to). The downside to that is that I have to fight some sort of grassy weed--I believe it is love grass--all year long. You can come move in here if you want, but our quiet little household probably would bore you to death in about 5 minutes. : ) As long as I do a good job of weeding in spring, summers around here are quiet and relatively easy. I grow my plants biointensively, so once they're large enough that their leaves are touching those of the next closest plant, I don't see many weeds sprouting because of the shade the plants provide (and the landscape fabric/mulch combo). Lately, I am yanking tiny elm seedlings out of the mulch as soon as they sprout...it's just that time of year. Dawn