Before I was successful in locating the individual ingredients for my own Gritty Mix version, I purchased bonsai mix from a large local garden center. It was ungodly expensive, though, for a very small bag. Another option may be purchasing small amounts of fir bark or a ready mixed orchid medium if there are any local orchid greenhouses/growers... and if the fir bark or mix they use is of small enough pieces. I don't require very large quantities of medium, so I buy small bags of a product called ReptiBark reptile bedding. It's very clean fir bark, though many people say the pieces are a bit too large. I think the small bags contain a decent enough size for my use... though I do notice that the larger bags contain larger pieces that are too big. I use perlite, which can be obtained almost anywhere garden supplies are sold. I prefer coarse perlite, but I'll use the regular stuff and simply sift it if I can't find the coarse stuff. I purchase granite chips at a farm supply store... around these parts, that's either Rural King or Farm & Fleet. The product is just granite chips, sold as grit for chickens/poultry, and it does require sifting or rinsing to remove dust. Turface is hard to come by for me... there's no local NAPA store, and I know one must be careful about other brands and types of oil dry/calcined clay... I omit it if I can't locate any, and I work with those items I can find. I find it extremely helpful to soak the fir bark in water overnight before using in a mix... so it doesn't become hydrophobic. Another good place to search for various medium ingredients would be Hydroponics type stores.

Watering frequently is only done when you are establishing new sod or new seed. Once the roots are knit into the soil, then you back off to infrequent watering. If you revert to frequent watering, then you will have all the weed seeds germinating. Which to get, St Aug or Zoysia? Look around your neighborhood for the successful lawns and go with the flow. I can almost guarantee you they are either bermuda (in full sun) or St Aug (full sun or shady). If you can find any successful zoysia lawns, ask the owner how long they have had it and would they do it again? Ask how often they water, mow and fertilize. I think you'll have trouble finding successful zoysia in Central to South Texas. I have a patch of zoysia but I am always in fear of it. Every week I expect it to go dormant...FOR THE REST OF THE SEASON. That's a funny thing about it. Once it goes dormant for any reason, it remains dormant no matter how much water or fertilizer you apply. I find it to be a fickle grass. But then in the spring it awakens like new. Last year my zoysia was dormant from about June 2011 through February. Since I only have a small patch it doesn't get the same care as the large part of the lawn. I've seen several zoysia lawns installed in upper middle class homes. All but one of those has converted to St Augustine before the end of the first season. The other one is going on 3 years now. Last year's drought, heat, and arid winds hit them hard, and they have a lot of weeds this year. We'll see what they do. In any case I don't consider it a pretty lawn and never have. So I'm obviously trying to persuade you to go with the grass that 99% of the non-bermuda lawns use.

I am successfully growing Dendrobium Kingianum keikis (plantlets) in a mix of coconut husk chips and fibres, fir bark and what I believe to be Bigelow's Porotrichum Moss. I did make preparation: I soaked the chips in hot water for a few hours than drained them and let them dry out completely in the sun and repeated this exercise one more time. My dendrobium plantlets seem to enjoy themselves in this mix of medium for I have witnessed unexpectedly rapid root growth as well as vegetative growth, more than that, new offshoots have also appeared. My plantlets do fair much better then I could have ever expected. I still need to devise the right proportions of the various components of the medium for my Cattleya hybrids though, for I fear the mix I potted my Dendrbiums in do not seem to be optimal for them. Perhaps they would prefer more husks and less bark or the other way round.

Well, the watering depends on the season, but these past couple of weeks I have been watering every second or third day. If it gets over 70degrees then I probably should water every other day. My tree is about 2' tall and a bit wider than that, very very bushy and it is in a ceramic pot which is probably a bit small for it now. I leave it out on the deck all winter and it gets pretty tough looking, but I have no other choice. It does get into the 20s regularly here, but only below 20 every 10 years or so (still, pretty cold for being right on the coast.) The first winter I had it inside on a covered porch, the second winter I went out and covered the darn thing a MILLION TIMES, this past winter I decided to leave it to brave the elements itself and it appears to be fine with that. Better than being covered, even, what with it being a chillier than usual spring here. I realize that I did not answer the question of coir online, but being in the Bay Area you should have no trouble finding a source nearby, I'm thinking.