Sec - I'll go look. BTW - I'm glad you found the old thread. I didn't want you to think I was ignoring you on the other thread ..... It's just that it was already soo far off topic I hated to start any cross chatter. The cherrystone is called just that, and that's what it says on the bag. It's actually quartzite, and a little bit of Fe in the stone is what makes it pink/red. I like it better because of it's appearance. It's mined in MN by New Ulm Quartzite Quarries. http://www.cherrystonegrit.com/index.html Remember it's a concept you're trying to implement. If you can find 2 ingredients, one that holds a lot of water (Turface/calcined DE) and one that holds almost no water (like the grit) in the right size, and you combine them with fir bark, you've got it made. The ingredients I use are just the best I've found so far. If you get rid of the perched water in your soil, I promise your plants will be MUCH happier. I'm serious when I say I water my succulents every 3 days, right along with my other plants, and they do exceptionally well. They may not be as exotic as what you guys grow, I have bonsai to fill that niche, but they ARE healthy. You'll have the whole C&C forum on the stuff within a year. Best ..... Al

"Natures_Nature, try it. Part of the fun of gardening & growing things is experimenting & learning as you go :)" I will experiment.. My main concern is damp off, everyone freaks about a "sterile" medium.. This seems a liitle ridiculous, taking in account no plant was ever in a sterile medium before, most plants are covered in tons of microorganisms.. These organisms is what helped these plants survive, they adapted the them for how long? Having a basic understanding of the soil food web tells you, the first thing that enters a sterile medium is most likely pathogens, because the beneficials are lacking. Now if those organisms were there like they are supposed to be, would we have damp off and other problems? Most people over water, or keep their soil too moist for too long, leading to damp off with any medium.. I trully believe damp is more about other factors like overwatering, poor air circ, too hot, other then sterile mediums..

Should work. Regarding your watering habits - AVs require consistent moisture, drought to drown doesn't work. Means you probably can keep them alive - but they will not reach the top of their potential. You need to try Streptocarpus - these guys actulally like to dry before watering. Good Luck - and keep us posted. Could it be that pumice is actually more expensive? I.

Hello Brian, I also live in Wilmington DE, and I am going through the same steps as you, but a step or two behind. I have 5 cuttings of Sicilian Red that I still have in plastic bags, but have very goods roots starting to show on 4 of them. My next step is getting them into cups of perlite/vermiculite mix. When you did this, did you control the humidity by putting them into a container or ziploc? How often did you water when they were in this state. I did some advance reading and found that one grower said while in cups, he used a 60% perlite/40% vermiculite, then when up-potting to 1 gallon pots he used 50% hummus and 50% perlite. I have three that I purchased that I currently have in 1 gallon pots of 50/50 hummus/perlite. Two of the three have a small fruit on them, but there hasn't been much growth in the last month. It may be due to the fruit, but I am reluctant to remove it. I did just find a small brown scale/oyster scale problem on 2 of the 3 plants. Used my fingernail to remove all of it, but keeping a close eye to see if there were any eggs. Maybe that had something to do with the slow growth. I also have just started fertilizing, trying to induce some growth. I will be interested to see what responses you get. Richdel