You're welcome. Thanks again, for being so kind. Some thoughts I offered in another, older threads on this forum. They should pretty much answer your question, and may even be quoted in the text somewhere up this thread (if so, I apologize for the redundancy): In my estimation, the only case to be made for reusing container soils is one of economics, and you'll never find me argue against making that decision. If you can't afford, you can't afford it. That said and setting economics aside, you might decide to reuse soil for reasons other than economical. Perhaps the effort involved with acquiring (or making your own) soil is something you might not wish to go through or be bothered with. In any case, it would be difficult to show that soils in a more advanced state of structural collapse can somehow be preferred to a soil that can be counted on to maintain its structure for the entire growth cycle. So, if the economic aspect is set aside, at some point you must decide that "my used soil is good enough" and that you're willing to accept whatever the results of that decision are. All soils are not created equal. The soils I grow in are usually pine bark based & collapse structurally at a much slower rate that peat based soils, yet I usually choose to turn them into the garden or give them over to a compost pile where they serve a better purpose than as a container soil after a year of service. Some plantings (like woody materials and some perennials) do pretty well the second year in the same bark-based soil, and with careful watering, I'm usually able to get them through a third year w/o root issues. Watering habits are an extremely important part of container gardening. Well structured soils that drain well are much more forgiving and certainly favor success on the part of the more inexperienced gardeners. As soils age, water retention increases and growing becomes increasingly difficult. If your (anyone's) excellence in watering skills allows you to grow in an aging medium, or if your decision that "good enough" is good enough for you, then it's (your decision) is good enough for me, too. The phrases "it works for me" or "I've done it this way for years w/o problems" is often offered up as good reason to continue the status quo, but there's not much substance there. I'm being called away now, but I'll leave with something I offered in reply on a recent thread: "... First, plants really aren't particular about what soil is made of. As long as you're willing to stand over your plant & water every 10 minutes, you can grow most plants perfectly well in a bucket of marbles. Mix a little of the proper fertilizers in the water & you're good to go. The plant has all it needs - water, nutrients, air in the root zone, and something to hold it in place. So, if we can grow in marbles, how can a soil fail? Our growing skills fail us more often than our soils fail. We often lack the experience or knowledge to recognize the shortcomings of our soils and to adjust for them. The lower our experience/knowledge levels are, the more nearly perfect should be the soils we grow in, but this is a catch 22 situation because hidden in the inexperience is the inability to even recognize differences between good and bad soil(s). Container soils fail when their structure fails. When we select soils with components that break down quickly or that are so small they find their way into and clog macro-pores, we begin our growing attempts under a handicap. I see anecdotes about reusing soils, even recommendations to do it all over these forums. I don't argue with the practice, but I (very) rarely do it, even when growing flowery annuals, meant only for a single season. Soils don't break down at an even rate. If you assign a soil a life of two years and imagine that the soil goes from perfect to unusable in that time, it's likely it would be fine for the first year, lose about 25% of its suitability in the first half of the second year, and lose the other 75% in the last half of the second year. This is an approximation & is only meant to illustrate the exponential rate at which soils collapse. Soils that are suitable for only a growing season show a similar rate of decline, but at an accelerated rate. When a used soil is mixed with fresh soil after a growing season, the old soil particles are in or about to begin a period of accelerated decay. I choose to turn them into the garden or they find their way to a compost pile. Unless the reasons are economical, I find it difficult to imagine why anyone would add garden soils to container soils. It destroys aeration and usually causes soils to retain too much water for too long. Sand (unless approaching the size of BB's), has the same effect. I don't use compost in soils because of the negative effect on aeration/drainage. The small amount of micro-nutrients provided by compost can be more efficiently added, organically or inorganically, via other vehicles. To boil this all down, a container soil fails when the inverse relationship between aeration/drainage goes awry. When aeration is reduced, soggy soil is the result, and trouble is in the making. I've mentioned before that I don't post here to get people to convert to a particular mix or blend of soil. I post what I know will work very well for anyone who can get appropriate ingredients & modify the mix to suit their climate & other cultural conditions. If you use a mix that guarantees good aeration for the expected life of the planting - you're in good shape. Most peat based mixes will not work well in extended life plantings. Conifer bark based mixes, on the other hand, retain structure for much longer periods. If you still have questions, please don't hesitate .... Al

Notice: I am not looking for help, simply posting something that others may empathize with or find as astounding as I do (we often assume that because someone specializes in something that they really know what they are talking about. I know that's not true, but still am surprised when it happens.) So, I'm still on the hunt for products I can use to make different soil mixes that are a bit faster than what I'm using now. I want to do some experiments both with wicking large containers and wicking small containers, like for small houseplants. I have a friend who works at a florist and I mentioned it to her. She said she works with many of the growers so maybe they would know where to find these products. Today she was over, so we called the grower she thought might help. This grower has been growing flowers in greenhouses for many years. Tracy called, explained I was looking for some things, then turned the phone over to me. The conversation went something like this. "Hi Betsy, thanks for taking time to take to me. I do mostly container gardening and am looking to change my potting mix" blah, blah. "So, I'm looking for the following things, pine bark...." "Oh, why don't you just use my mix?" Great! I think. She's got one already made with bark in it. "What's it made of?" I ask. "Well, it's all natural soil. We don't believe in soilless mixes, especially not in containers. I mean, how are plants going to get nutrients, especially the minors?" "Um, from a fertilizer that supplies the minors?" I offered. "Oh, but that's not the same. You should try our mix." "Thank you, but that's not what I want to do at this time." "But, all of our customers love it! You really should try it." I won't go through the rest of the painful call, but suffice it to say, she didn't have what I wanted, nor could she point me to someone who did. I'm sure I'll get them all eventually, but I'd much rather get them easily in one place since I mostly ride a bike and will have to borrow or rent a car to run this all down. Just hoping anyone else who's had problems with this might get a chuckle out of the story. And, also, pointing out how amazing it is that even people with a LOT of experience can know very little when it comes to science or research.

Exactly, the paper i pasted from describes the same phenom you have been describing for over 10 years. I have always raged that the big greenhouse media suppliers claim that 30% perlite into a peat is a high porosity mix. And so many growers prefer short squatty containers [helpful for blow over prevention but nothing else] Container Geometry is almost as important as the mix. i remember in 1984 I took a 400 level greenhouse management course at University of Delaware. The prof soaked a rectangular sponge and held it by the edges parrallel to the sink flatwise and let water drain, then he rotated the sponge on the shorter vertical axis and more water drained, when that free drainage ended he then rotated the sponge vertically in it tallest plane and more water drained. When I read your suggestion about using a draping shoelace as draining wick to lower the PWT the distance of the wick, I shouted YES at the elegant simple brilliance. In 1977 I grew a marijuana plant in a milk crate full of gravel, the stalk was over 2 inches in diameter [no different than growing in glass.] BTW, in your gritty mix what are the ratios and actual particle size for each component? I would think to use slightly larger particle sizes than i think you were using and i would probably consider using zeolite or a calcined DE or calcined clay. BTW, Ep minerals makes several absorbents both DE and Clay, Calcined or regular as various spill absorbers available in any auto parts store. 5o pounds for about 10 dollars. Don''t know the particle sizes but likely need to be screened to eliminate the fines. The clays are generally calcium bentonite and not sodium bentonite so less sodium and less swelling. I beileve Arcillite and Tuface are calcium bentonites. I was just thinking that decomoposed granite and even bark add no water holding capacity but with DE and Proper sized ceramics you could add more waterholding capacity but still maintain the airspace. The airspace in the ep mineral clay was pretty low when I measured it last, but I did not screen it. Somewhere I have a spreadsheet with AFP, WHC, TP, TPv, etc for over a dozen components and mixes. I have run quite a few in both 16 oz and taller 32 oz cups, [1 liter exactly when filled to rim overflow which makes that size intuitively easy for all the math. I think i found your posts about 3 years ago and then lost them. Am I correct in thinking you have some water release curve data around somewhere. Someone posted some WRC showing that Axis DE or perhaps the Axis clay media held huge amounts of water but easily released over 75% to the plant. TI can not find that post. I was actually searching for Vertical hydraulic conductivity, Capillary Rise and Capillary rate and wicking when your links showed up. The axis DE is like $90 a bag for 50 pounds so i think I could more cheaply reproduce from other products but have to screen. where I live in idaho, there is a Celatom DE plant less than 60 miles away, 2 zeolite mines, a sodium bentonite mine, WHC and Airspace mid 20s in the 2 larger particle sizess. Also the best white pumice [Hess] source mine a few hours away. I had hoped better water holding capacity. I plan on rerunning all the mixes again in a few months now that i have more standardized my process using multiple cup sizes, some of them tamped or shaken to settle, some top watered, some bottom water, measure distance of subsidence if any. I also have a vegetronix tensionometer now and will take additional measures at various depths to measure the exact tension and also verify depth of pWT which i can usually see through the transparent cups if I use a marking dye and saturate from below. Anyway I will share those spreadsheets in the near future If i were to guess, you have some sort of plant and soil science background or some civil engineering background and a love for plants. At any rate, your explanations and examples are some of the best I have ever come across, and your shoelace suggestion is brilliant, truly. i read so much WRONG advice or the wrong analysis for reason why something works or does not work. it is refreshing to come across accurate information Garret Goyette

Hmm... unfortunately it's too late for that :( Hopefully this will grow and not give up on me. Finished work after pruning/ repotting is attached. Do I have to water it now or wait for a weak or two? My guess is I would expect to see some leaf shedding over the next week or so, but it should stop after that? Also ran out of perlite so bottom half of the soil is 70% perlite and top half is 50%. Top 1 inch is less than 30% and have to get some extra perlite and re-mix in that top layer. Thanks again for all the advice. Btw I got a bunch of small cuttings!!! :-) I want to try and propagate at least a couple of them. Am I able to leave the cuttings out (indoor) for a week and do this next weekend? Or put them in water or something in the meantime? I am guessing same procedure same soil mix same watering interval smaller pot (terracotta) would do. Is that correct?