The usual response I get to coconut husk chips is "huh?" No one in my area that I've found so far has even heard of them but for one other fellow Citrus Forum member who lives here. He buys them from a supplier in Orlando and was kind enough to get me a bale last time. I'm using the recipe that Millet gave once and so far it works for me. Here is what I do. After properly pre-soaking and then pre-treating the CHC's with CaNO3 and MgSo4 during the last rinse I then blend my growing medium mixture usually one cubic foot at a time. I start with the basic mix of 4 parts CHC (1/4 or 1/2 inch chips or a mix of the two sizes) to one part peat moss and to this basic mixture I add the following ingredients per 1-cubic foot: .57-lbs. (258-gms) 23-4-8 one year slow release fertilizer. .48-lbs. (218-gms) Dolomite .08-lbs. ( 36-gms) Regular water soluble fertilizer w/o trace minerals. .08-lbs. ( 36-gms) STEM (Soluble Trace Element Mix) Blend entire mixture well. I then begin my regular fertilizer applications one month after transplanting the tree into the above medium. 1 cubic foot = 7.481 liquid gallons or 6.429 dry gallons I have varied from this slightly by using 1.5 parts peat to 4 parts CHCs, but now that I've had a chance to observe my plants for some weeks now the recommended 4:1 is probably sufficient. I could not find any one year slow release fertilizer so I'm using some four month stuff, but given Florida's warm climate it probably releases faster than that. .....Alan.

The difference between 'small' and 'medium' isn't that much. What it really means is that per square inch, the larger chips have a smaller surface area. I know that might not make sense at first, but if you think about it, a bunch of tiny little marbles in a fishbowl has a much larger surface area than a bowling ball would, even though the volume of the smaller marbles added together is less than the bowling ball. For small CHC, this means there is less air in the soil solution and the roots are more tightly surrounded than in larger CHC. Make of that what you will, because I really can't see the major difference other than aesthetics and root-growth in smaller trees. Long story short, I've got my first cutting, a pre-grafting learning experience, planted in medium CHC. It's doing just fine outside in the wind and weather. I've even tipped it out of the container to see tiny little roots growing into the 'gigantic' CHC. It looks kind of funny in the pot, but other than that it's doing just fine and has a good grip on its 'soil'.

General examples of "opinions": "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." --Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949 > "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." --Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943 > "I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year." --The editor in charge of business books for Prentice Hall, 1957 > "But what ... is it good for?" --Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip. > "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." --Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977 > "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876. > "The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" --David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s. > "The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C,' the idea must be feasible." --A Yale University management professor in response to Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service. (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.) > "Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" --H.M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927. > "I'm just glad it'll be Clark Gable who's falling on his face and not Gary Cooper." --Gary Cooper on his decision not to take the leading role in "Gone With The Wind." > "A cookie store is a bad idea. Besides, the market research reports say America likes crispy cookies, not soft and chewy cookies like you make." -- Response to Debbi Fields' idea of starting Mrs. Fields' Cookies. > "We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." --Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962. > "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." --Lord Kelvin, president, Royal Society, 1895. > "If I had thought about it, I wouldn't have done the experiment. The literature was full of examples that said you can't do this." --Spencer Silver on the work that led to the unique adhesives for 3-M "Post-It" Notepads. > "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said, 'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" --Apple Computer Inc. founder Steve Jobs on attempts to get Atari and H-P interested in his and Steve Wozniak's personal computer. > "Professor Goddard does not know the relation between action and reaction and the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react. He seems to lack the basic knowledge ladled out daily in high schools." --1921 New York Times editorial about Robert Goddard's revolutionary rocket work. > "You want to have consistent and uniform muscle development across all of your muscles? It can't be done. It's just a fact of life. You just have to accept inconsistent muscle development as an unalterable condition of weight training." --Response to Arthur Jones, who solved the "unsolvable" problem by inventing Nautilus. > "Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." --Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859. > "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." --Irving Fisher, Professor of Economics, Yale University, 1929. > "Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." --Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre. > "Everything that can be invented has been invented." --Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. Office of Patents, 1899. > "Louis Pasteur's theory of germs is ridiculous fiction". --Pierre Pachet, Professor of Physiology at Toulouse, 1872 > "The abdomen, the chest, and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon". --Sir John Eric Ericksen, British surgeon, appointed Surgeon-Extraordinary to Queen Victoria 1873. > "640K ought to be enough for anybody." -- Bill Gates, 1981 ----------------------------------------------------------------- The above was sent to me in an e-mail "pass along" in 1988. I do not know who originally assembled it.

1. Echinopsis subdenudata aka:Domino Cactus 2. Parodia scopa var. sulphurea 3. Right- Parodia leninghausii(This plant will always be a Notocactus in my heart:)). Middle- definitely one of those Oreocereus Old Man Cactus. Looks like O. trollii:). Left- A Mammillaria:) I see some similarities in yours and M. bombycina. Not 100% sure on the species, but the genus is definitely a Mammillaria:). I must tell you that you have really nice specimens of cactus:). Wherever you got them, they know how to grow beautiful cactus.