Mainly because it's not necessary. Most of the conversations that included vermiculite in the gritty mix occurred during a short length of time during which there was one lady growing succulents who was convinced she needed more water retention & she couldn't get it by varying the ingredients. In reality, the small volume of vermiculite doesn't help the soil's rewetability. What really happens when the soil is very dry is, the Turface fraction never becomes hydrophobic unless it's coated with algae (usually from using organic fertilizers/soil amendments and lots of water). The Turface absorbs water instantly. no matter how dry the soil is, and enough water vapor diffuses into the bark fraction to eliminate its tendency toward hydrophobia. Al

1) For most houseplants, full repots which include bare-rooting and a soil change are best done in the month prior to the most robust growth. For you, that would be mid-Jun through Jul. If you have good indoor (supplemental) lighting, you can probably get away with repotting any time, but recovery time will be considerably slower if you do it in the short day months with plants under natural indoor light. 2) Key, are the size of the particles and their stability. If both are appropriate, it's fine. Particles in the 1/10 - 1/8" range are best. 3) There are lots of threads discussing where to find bark. I often find it at big box stores or nurseries. It's sold as mulch, soil conditioner, clay soil conditioner, aged pine bark fines, double grind pine bark, and other names. I recently found some for Linda in TX by calling nurseries and asking them if they had pine bark small enough to be suitable for use in container media. If 'NO', my next question would automatically be "Do you know who would, in the immediate area?" In this case it lead me to a bulk supplier of double grind. 4) You can usually buy hardware cloth by the foot at smaller hardware stores. Al

Hey Pete, I hear you on the extra perlite..my houseplants love it too. But it's so hard to water them when there's so much perlite floating on top! I would really get those cacti/succs out of that Walmart soil ASAP. I'm not sure what can be potted together, but I'm sure all the cacti have the same cultural needs (just an educated guess..again, that's not my forte). But as Cochemiea said, the cereoid plants are tall growing so maybe put those in the same pot? As for the "jade"...I really don't think that's a jade (crassula ovata). Maybe someone here can ID it for you. It's definitely a succulent though. It looks like maybe something is eating it? I have no experience with that at all, but some leaves look chewed on. Maybe inspect your plant just to make sure. Also, is the soil in that plant well draining? It looks kind of "muddy", kind of like the soil in the cacti. As for why it's leaning over...my guess would be overwatering and/or not enough light? You said you had a plastic cover on it...just wondering why, because I don't think succs need that much humidity. I only put plastic covering on seedlings or some things I'm propagating, depending on the type of plant. As far as cutting that succ down, I'm sure that would help it a little, but maybe wait till Spring to do that so you can easily propagate the cuttings, which may be a way to restart the plant if the mama plant fails. As for my Ardisia, it's shooting out leaves like crazy! Here's a pic I posted in the first post I think in November: And here it is now (the top leaves were TINY a few days ago):

â¢Posted by succulent_succotash Paul_, are you using gritty mix solely for your terrariums? Any other type of soil mixture? Actually for all 3 of my large terrs, It's a 2-3inch layer of sphag over lava rock. Reason being is it makes for a lighter weight tank should I need to move it, and the plants I have in them are more moisture lovers. I don't do succulent terrs as they do not make good long term terr inhabitants. IME, any organic material will grow mold -- especially in a terr. You may not notice some types as not all are light colored, but they are there nonetheless. What will greatly reduce the presence of many fungi -- at least the white fuzzy types -- is good air circulation ... something many terrs lack. Once I installed a couple pc fans in my 90gal terr, mold issues abated.