You can call the mill at Shasta Forest products (530) 842-2787 - Mill Office (530) 842-2786 - Fax info@shastabark.com - Email and ask who, near you, distributes/retails their products. You want their 1/8-1/4" size. You should expect to pay somewhere around $15 for 3 cu ft of the prescreened bark. Al

I've never grown them in an orchid mix, or seen them grown in such, but that doesn't mean it won't work. They can easily be grown in either the gritty mix or the 5:1:1 mix. It's easy to overlook the fact that plants in containers may very well not prefer the same type of root medium in which they grow in situ. As long as you provide a medium that holds little or no perched water, you water/fertilize appropriately, and give the plant the light/temperature it prefers, you'll be fine. The key to providing a healthy root medium lies not so much in what materials the soil is made of; rather, in the size and uniformity of the particles that make up the medium. The potential for your plant to prosper is much greater in a soil that has a favorable structure and no organic fraction than it is in a soil with a significant organic fraction but with an unfavorable structure. Al

Use your judgement. It depends on whether your plants are going out for the summer and how wet they will get. I like perlite to keep the mix open but still allowing the bark to hold some moisture. But if its really humid and rainy, you stand a chance of rot so you be the judge. I usually will bring the Phals, oncids and intergenerics inside if the weather gets too wet. In winter its a different story. If your house is bone dry, you can add a little blanket of sphag on top of the bark which you can remove in the summer. You'll find your way. Add about 90% small bark, a pinch of sphag (2%) and the sprinkle of perlite mixed in. With the Phals I'd add more sphag, maybe 80% bark, 15% sphag and some perlite. I'm not good with measuring, I don't do it. I look at the old medium and the condition of the roots and go from there. Its truly a judgement call on your part. You know your weather and your house conditions. More sphag, more dampness. Smaller bark, more water retention. So you need to figure it out. Jane

Holy cow, Al! It seems you very quickly become defensive of grit, even when it isn't under fire. You aren't being fair, or helpful, and you've accused me of making statements I never made. I said, "the moral of the story is: know your medium." I don't know how you interpreted that, or anything else I said, as blaming the medium, but now I see how grit has become a point of contention on the forum. "I'm one of the first to acknowledge or point out any limitations inherent in either the 5:1:1 mix or the gritty mix." I don't recall these discussions. In your opinion/experience, what are those limitations? "In this case, you're using a soil 'sort of' like the gritty mix, but not the gritty mix." I thought I was using a medium almost exactly like your 1:1:1. If I thought it was significantly different, I wouldn't have used it. I have depended on your advice throughout this process. Perhaps you don't remember me consulting you before I mixed it. You told me the bark wasn't important, and was really just there for those who weren't comfortable without an organic fraction. You also said DE was a perfectly acceptable substitute for Turface, and it was on your advice that I made my mix 2 parts granite to 1 part DE instead of the 1:1 ratio I'd have thought. You didn't warn me that it wouldn't perform the same (and I don't think we know that, still). I'm not blaming you, but I also don't think it's fair of you to blame me. This was a joint effort - done with your advice, knowledge, and blessing. "You have plants that were repotted in the fall and then lifted from the soil so you could inspect the roots - and were subjected to either over or under-watering - we don't know which." You can't blame pulling the plants since that wasn't done until just a few days ago, when it was obvious that something was very wrong. and we'd been unable to figure it out. My only recourse was to pull the plants and check the roots because they were ALREADY dying. Not being able to readily tell whether a plant is over- or under-watered is a frustrating drawback of grit. I also followed your advice on how and when to water. I took every piece of advice you gave me. One of the purported advantages of grit is that it's almost impossible to over-water, so do you really think that watering succulents in grit once a week was too much, especially since some of the affected plants are winter-growers, and they were in direct sunlight and reasonably warm? We don't know that they weren't overwatered, but it seems unlikely. "There is no way I would have suggested that you start repotting plants in the middle of winter." C'mon, Al. October 15 is mid-autumn, not the middle of winter, and for a summer-dormant species like the Aeonium and jades, hardly an inappropriate time to pot, especially since I bought the Aeonium already uprooted. Please don't exaggerate to make me look foolish. "Additionally, you have no experience growing in a medium like the gritty mix, so to assume the shortcomings associated with your efforts are the soil's fault isn't logical. If many are able to grow plants that exhibit excellent vitality in the gritty mix or by just efficiently implementing the concept behind the soils, how can any one grower blame the soil or the concept? ...the grower's obligation doesn't stop at providing a good medium. Who blamed the soil or the concept? I didn't. Whose post are you reading? And I haven't ASSUMED anything. I base all my hypotheses on evidence. My approach is ANYTHING BUT illogical. Go back and read all my posts on the subject of grit, and find me a single example in which I'm illogical. I resent that remark. It's entirely off-base. I simply pointed out a difference between grit and other media I've used: the top of grit dries very fast. Do you deny that? You can't easily tell if the plants are getting too much or not enough water. Do you deny that? "There is no practical way to put the roots of the Aeonium and those of the other plant at the same depth. I refer you to my "how do these roots look to you" post in the cacti forum .... It was those plants I was thinking about when I offered that suggestion." What suggestion? I'm not sure what you're referring to here. "...there IS a way to do it, it just requires a little patience. If you really wanted to pot the shortest AND tallest plants together...you might've planned ahead instead of just doing it...and it would've been no problem to do it in the summer...all you would need to do is lop off the bottom of the tall plants and start the tops as cuttings; or, lop off the top of the tall plants and discard them - then plant the roots at the same depth as the shorter plants." I said practical way to do it. I don't consider chopping a lovely plant in half to be very practical. I like my Aeonium at its current height. I don't want to cut it in half, at least not now or then, especially since when I potted it, I had just rescued it from poor conditions at the nursery. It was on its side, uprooted, and had to be potted - which is why it was put in grit in October (actually more likely August or early September) - it couldn't wait. You, yourself told me that I'd made the right choice in not cutting it back until it had recovered. Furthermore, since Aeonium's are summer-dormant, fall would seem a fine time to transplant them. In fact, the Aeonium was growing VERY WELL this winter after I planted it, so the re-potting isn't to blame. The problem didn't arise until I discovered the smaller plants were apparently water-stressed, and I tried to surface water just for them. That IS something one can do in most soils. It doesn't work well in grit. Get as defensive as you please; accuse me of "blaming" the medium if you like, but the truth remains the same: water doesn't stay on the surface of grit like it does in more absorbent media. That isn't criticism or blame. It's an observable difference between two types of media. "Blaming the soil is like blaming a bicycle you don't know how to ride or a math problem you don't know how to solve." Again, I didn't blame anything. I simply sought help and advice for a problem I had with my plants growing in grit because grit is different from what I'm used to. I didn't expect to be hauled over the coals for seeking help.