I started using 5-1-1 for my vegetables and flowering annuals in 2011, so this is my third year. I have been so happy with the results, that I am growing more container plants each year. For example, i grew four tomato plants in 25-gallon smart pots in 2011. Last year i grew seven, and this year i am growing 10. So part of the answer is that I use some of the old mix to make up the mix for the new pots. I also grow about a dozen hanging baskets of flowering annuals each year. At the end of the season I dump them and the soil they grew in into my compost bin. At the end of the vegetable growing season, I remove the plants and their rootballs from my containers and add them to the compost pile unless the plants have shown any diseases. I make an exception for tomato plants, which i dispose of completely so as not to risk carrying over soilborne diseases. I remove the top 5-6 inches of mix from each vegetable pot and use it like a mulch under shrubs at the edges of our yard. The last couple years I decided to leave the rest of the spent mix in the smart pots with a layer of shredded leaves on top. When spring arrives, the mix has reduced to fill about two thirds of each pot. I remove about half of the mix from each pot and use it as an addition of about 2 extra parts to the fresh 5-1-1 I make for new plants. Then I mix controlled release fertilizer and gypsum (for calcium) into the old 5-1-1 in the pots. I top each pot off with fresh 5-1-1-2. I have used the spent soil left over after all this to "hill" potatoes in large containers and to create a few small raised bed garden plots in my yard for things like garlic, herbs and flower bulbs. I grow almost everything in containers because my small yard is surrounded by black walnut trees that poison the soil for most of the things I want to grow. If I could add the used 5-1-1 to a raised bed, I would. What I do may not be ideal, but it saves me a little money and effort and it satisfies my Scottish sensibilities.

Face it! Miracle Gro is just a commercial potting soil, albeit generally of reasonable quality. See one post above though for a demurral to that. The one thing that the Moisture Control product has, that others don't, is a measure of coir. That is, the fibrous outer husk of coconuts. And yes, coir does help significantly with moisture control. Be careful, however, as they do have another product with a similar name that has water-retaining crystals. If you like that, fine, just be sure of what you're getting. Moisture control! Now, what do we mean by that? The coir absorbs lots of water without becoming soggy and then releases it slowly as your plant uses it up. I've used it for several years as part of my repotting mix, to which I transfer young seedlings to grow until they are planted out. Using this mix allows me to water once a day without any worry that the medium will become waterlogged or dry out before the next day. I can do this right up until the plants are a foot high, a foot wide and drinking water like crazy. Then they have to be planted out. This is in a 32 oz. cup. I don't have any experience with container growing but I suspect that the same effect would occur in a larger volume as well. Your plants should do as well and maybe better. The principal difference, as far as I know, is that the coir is substituted for other materials, such as peat, vermiculite or perlite. It does hold and ration water better than peat and it has an advantage over vermiculite and perlite in that it is a natural plant material and will gradually break down and contribute to plant nutrition. There are other possibilities for accomplishing the same thing, though. For instance there are other coir products, some very expensive. Miracle Gro Moisture Control doesn't have very much. You could add more or make your own mix by getting blocks of ground coir and wetting them. These can be found at hydroponic dealers and are not very costly. A container-grown plant should do very well in a mixture of about 3/4 of good garden soil and 1/4 coir. That would also be a lot less expensive.

As far as "best mix", IME, there is no such thing. Particularly with the the hybrid phals, it typically comes down to what your particular watering practices and conditions are. I have used mixes containing various combinations of: coconut husk chunks or med-large grade bark, large/med grade horticultural charcoal, hydroton/primagra/the little puffed clay balls, medium-large grade perlite, corks, lava rock/pumice, and sphag -- depending upon what I have on hand at the time. I have on several occasions grown them in straight sphag without any issue. I have also grown them mounted on cork with no media at all. I've known folks who grow them in semi-hydro. They really are not fussy plants ... you just have to determine what will work best for you in your conditions. The biggest thing is to remember that the media should be coarse/airy or the roots are likely to suffocate. When I use straight sphag, I do not pack the sphag tightly ... but then I don't pack any media I use tightly though I know many growers who do. I recall one phal in particular that had many folks at my old os rather flabbergasted. Friends of mine had purchased one of those mass produced generic phals at Costco. It was in a 8-10" pot of tightly packed sphag. Not being plant people, I gave them some advice about watering which was to water sparingly as it was fall and the plant was in a shady window and the fact that a solid mass of sphag like that would not dry out quickly. After the blooms died, they gave the plant to me. When I removed the plant from the pot, the sphag came with it in a perfect pot-shaped mass. The roots running along the outside of the sphag were in good shape, surprisingly. So I decided to experiment since a generic white phal was, IMO, expendable. Rather than soaking and removing the moss, I left it as it was -- didn't even put it back in the pot. Rather I sat the pot-shaped mass of sphag on a large shallow saucer and watered it off and on with the goal of keeping the moss barely damp on the outside. Sometimes I would forget an the moss got very dry though not parched. So I'd just give a little more water to rehydrate the moss that next water. Plant did great. The following year I donated it to the society for their summer picnic auction ... still in that pot-shaped mass of sphag. "How do you soak them without getting the grown of them wet? Or do you early in the morning and not worry about it. I have fans blowing and the heat from the lights would evaporate any water that gets on the leaves in my warm room within an hour or two. Would you still be concerned?" I don't worry about getting them wet though when soaking my potted ones (which is what I, personally, do) I do pour the water directly on the media. but if some water splashes on the leaves I don't fret. In your conditions, with the leaves and crown drying off that quickly, you shouldn't have to worry. Just make sure the water isn't really cold.

Fertilizing a medium that allows you to water freely to beyond the point where your soil is completely saturated (so you're 'flushing' the soil when you water) without having to worry the soil will remain soggy for extended periods, is very different, less complicated, and more forgiving of grower error, than soils you have to fight tooth and nail for control over your plants vitality (health). To illustrate how stark the difference is, I can describe or prescribe a very easy, flexible, and extremely effective fertilizing plan in a paragraph or two if I know you're using a medium that allows you to water correctly. I can take a little longer and describe to you how to deal with excessive water retention, at least to the degree that it allows you to fertilize effectively. If you are limited in your ability to water correctly, and aren't taking steps to foil your soil's tendency to hold excessive amounts of water, no one can offer meaningful advice on how to approach nutritional supplementation without producing a tome full of qualifying comments to cover the myriad combinations of issues likely to affect how much of their potential your plants can realize. Leibig's Law of the Minimum states that the nutritional or cultural influence that is most lacking is what is limiting your plant. It could be a nutrient, temperature, light levels, insects ......... A very large fraction of growers are limited by their soil choice and watering habits. There are soils that are good, better, and nearly best, all of which allow the grower to water correctly. If you remain interested in plants, my best advice would be to learn how to make your soil work for you, instead at cross purposes with your intentions. It will make a world of difference in how quickly you progress in the hobby. This Basic Overview might be of interest. Al