well, soil retains water - so if you create a mix that contains soil (I think of that as the soil backing/or base) - then the other components ... the perlite, or bark, or rocks - well that's the extras. :) ... Now if you have a mix without soil - then peat would be the component to 'hold' the water... but if you have soil in there. Doesn't it do it already? why add peat too? I mean, you're talking in a pot - you water it often enough that if you're looking for the absorbtion component in peat - soil kinda' does that. - most often you don't want to much water retention in a pot. - now if you were saying mixing the peat in your garden bed - then I'd be a bit more understanding. Can't stand hosing the yard any more than necessary. I'm NOT an expert. REALLY. And I constantly show where my knowledge is lacking. I try to make sense of these mixes and goodness knows - I'm glad for folks like AL who can reason out how all the stuff works ... cause my mind can only wrap around so much info at once - and then I need my buddies to lead me through it when it gets to complicated. Thank goodness for GW and the good friends I've made here. :)

Hi Usually the gift roese like you received are not potted in the best of soil and they are usually it a pot that is way to small for them. Roses need sunlight and that means grown outside. Your rose was most likely grown in a greenhouse and pushed to bloom out of season. Look at the post "How to save a Potted Gift Rose and you should be able to save the rose. Good Luck.

Sele., I'm happy to report that your festive lights gave me enough holiday cheer to go find my decorations, some in the shed, some in a plastic tub thing way up on top of the bedroom TV. I couldn't find the little 8" tree I know I had but did find the big 3-ft. tree and daggone it, we're going to find someplace to stick it. (My big Sans doesn't look anywhere as nice as that right now, and out in the shed unless a really cold night comes along.) More about indestructibility; when I dug mine up from summering in the ground, I shared some. Meaning that I knocked the dirt off of the roots, let them dry overnight, wrapped in newspaper, stuck in a box, took to PO. I've done this quite a few times & everyone who has received them says they arrived just fine and are doing well. Pics confirm. I've also received plants this way. This is the usual way to send succulents, judging by anecdotes about it and the boxes I've received from extremely knowledgeable/experienced (and generous!) chatters. When my son & I get some stuff decked out, I'll take a pic. TY, PG. Wouldn't it be nice if all leaves responded the same ways to drought stress? This discussion makes me want to let a vigorous rosette dry, dry, dry, to document what happens. You know I'm ready to put these plants to scientific experimentation like that. I will choose a test subject & start a discussion soon. I don't think you jumped a gun, Sans really shouldn't lose leaves, that's just unusual. Over the years they get inadvertently beat-up, but I think that's the only reason I've cut a leaf off of one. Do you remember the 'stumps' I propagated a while back? Some of those had to be at least 10 years old. Your thinking is going right where mine was. Chunks decompose. That's why I was asking about sediment around the drain holes. As that happens, the ability to hold moisture, and the amount of moisture it will hold go up exponentially! I use almost strictly organic stuff in pots so know how fast it can break down, what the result is, I see it at least 100x per year. I attribute a lot of that to hot, steamy AL weather, the fact that I'm trying my best to overwater all of the plants, and the fact that worms get in there and start munching. A year-18 mos. is the max amount of time most of my pots can go without getting rid of mud & replacing it with new 'chunky stuff.' I'm curious too about the level of decomposition in this pot in an apartment, inside all the time, not watered nearly as often. As wood decomposes, it turns into tiny particles - dirt. Sidebar, do not use any of the rest of this entry as advice for anything, just me talking about the weird things I do that are NOT advised, but related to the decomposition issue, my observations... Some of the pots I brought inside a month ago haven't been watered yet. The mud at the bottom of the pots from a summers' decomposition is just that - mud. The surface looks unchanged but a huge increase in...

My Golden Rave all have spindly ragged looking new growth, but the plants are doing great and growing huge and that's just how the new growth looks on them. The downward twisting of the branches happened to me with Jet Stars when I let the pots dry out, and after transplant shock.