Old thread, but I found it quite useful! Still spent many many hours hunting down all the gritty mix parts in the Toronto area, so hopefully my update can help some others in the future. Especially for those looking for components on weekends. Turface: Profile Soil Conditioner by Nu-Gro. Found at Van Gongen's Garden Center. 6750 Trafalgar Road, Milton. Gro-Bark supposedly has MVP, but has terrible weekday hours. Fir Bark: Labelled as "orchid bark", approx 1/4" pieces in a smallish sized bag. Looks slightly composted. Very pricey at $8!!! Found at Terra Greenhouses. 280 Britannia Road E, Milton. Fir Bark Alternative: Repti Bark in 24qt bags, pieces need to be broken up since they are slightly too big. Three times cheaper than "orchid bark" above. Call ahead since big bags are harder to find. Petsmart (all over the GTA). Blender Tip: For the Repti Bark, I got a $20 blender from Walmart. Best yield was from filling it 3/4 full of bark and tipping the blender on its side, using a medium-high speed. That way the bark actually relatively evenly while blending and minimized dust. Respirator was very helpful. Chicken Grit: Called "Poultry Grit" here, labelled as "White Star Poultry Grower Grit 25kg". Comes in a woven plastic bag that clearly states Granite. Does not look like Dolomite, it looks like white granite. Found at Sharpe Farm Supplies Ltd. 2150 15th Side Rd, Moffat. Chicken Grit Fail: Do NOT go to the TSC Stores in Milton!! The website says they have chicken grit, but they have no stock and the cashier never remembered them ever carrying it. Grit Alternative: "3/4in Red Chip Brick", comes in a large 1 cubic foot bag. A quarter of the bag made it through 1/4" screen, which wasn't too bad. Found at Van Beek's Garden Supplies, 758 Southdown Rd., Mississauga. Unsuccessful locations: Jade Gardens Greenhouses, Sheridan Nurseries, Bulow Garden Center and Landscaping, TSC, Acorn Landscape Supply (and many other landscape supply stores). Crushed limestone is very common and popular, but of course unsuitable (at landscape supply stores). Sphagnum peat: For 5:1:1 mix. Easily found for 5:1:1 mix. Terra had 1 cubic ft bags. Perlite: For 5:1:1 mix. Cheapest place with reliable stock was Sheridan Nurseries. Photo below of my final gritty mix materials (clockwise from top): White granite chicken grit, turface/soil conditioner, blended repti bark, $$ fir "orchid bark", screened chipped red brick. Canadian quarter for scale. :D

Bruce: The amazing thing to me is that anyone would sell a peach tree for planting in a zone 3 climate. I guess where there are willing buyers there will always be sellers, but, realistically, your chances of growing peaches are very small indeed. It may be true that the tree will eventually leaf out. The question is will it ever peach out. And what is a peach tree without peaches? Don Yellman, Great Falls, VA

Thanks crunchpa, I'm laughing because the only daylily I have is Hyperion. It never occurred to me how they would look in mass like that. I have one lonely one that I just moved that I'm waiting for it to get a little bigger. My garden is pretty much full and not a lot of space left, so I'm not dividing a lot except I'm hoping to divide a lot of shade plants, ferns, heucheras, and epimedium in the fall for a few areas that need a bit more. I also try to plant enough to keep the weeds down, but my garden is so dry from so many surrounding trees that it makes a big difference to have mulch down. Yesterday in my travels, I thought of this thread as I passed gas stations and supermarket parking lots with daylilies of the ditch variety with ugly orange blooms sticking out of yellow ugly foliage. AWFUL! Definitely not the well cared for, hybrid varieties that I'm sure are in many of your gardens. And a single row of daylilies with nothing else, all the same color, along the front of a pretty wall, hiding most of the wall along about a 300 ft span in front of a new housing unit.

Thanks for the garden tour. I like the Arbutus trees popping up. It's nice to see what other exotic plant growers are doing in the garden. Someone gave me a palm of at least $150 in value today for sharing of info. If it had been a Windmill palm I'd plant it now. But it's a type of C. humilis so I'll wait until next spring to plant it. It's the second time this year that BC gardeners hand me a palm for the garden. They see that I'm trying to form a dense palm planting. My big Cordys are there as fillers until the younger palms rise to take over. Here's a garden pic from the lower mainland. This bluish Euc contrasts with the green foliage. To the right is giant reed. I planted a variegated form. Cheers Here is a link that might be useful: