I've used a garden soil/potting mix combo for the last 4 years of my rooftop container garden without knowing what I was doing. For the first three years I had lots of good growth with herbs and peppers and flowers. Certain things, like rose bushes and tomatoes, I had problems growing. Last year we had an extremely bad drought here in Chicago and I had lots of problems with some of my hardy plants like morning glories which can even grow well in cracks in the sidewalk. The lack of rain really displayed a big problem I had with my soil. This year I'm doing a modified Al's mix using lots of pine bark (knock on wood). Due to logistics and the massive amount of soil I already have I'm recycling it into the new mixture with about 40% of the mix the old "bad" soil I had been using. So far I have noticed a difference with my finger test. When I stick my finger into the soil it slides in easily and I can almost feel the air pockets in the soil. When installed in the container it kind of sits in there like a sponge. I can't report success (or hopefully not failure :-) until the end of summer but just by how this soil feels to the touch I'm converting my entire garden to this pine bark mixture. So the bottom line, you might be able to get by with a little garden soil in a mixture. I'm not sure what I'd do if I were starting from scratch since I don't necessarily want my containers to drain out quickly each and every day. There are too many to water every day and some of the hardier plants, like hot peppers and morning glory and other vines, simply don't need the greatest and most sophisticated soil mixture to survive and thrive.

Hi I will like to send a sasbe if there is any more seed left. The seeds I would like are: Convolvulus tricolor Super hot peppers Heavenly blue morning glory (my seeds) Green bell pepper Shrimp plant (Few Seeds left) Jap. Morning glory mix Wisteria Purple hycanth vine Morning Glory: Heavenly blue Milky Way Flying saucers (striped) Blue Star Burpees Heavenly White Star of Yelta Bright eyed girl Moonflower White Blue Enchantment (bush morning glory) Red enchantment Cosmos Sensation mix Summer Dreams Gloria Cosmos Mexican Hat Love in a puff vine Shasta Fried Eggs Limnanthes douglassi Pepper California Wonder Garlic chives Contry Romance Hollyhocks (these are beautiful) Coneflower (magnus I think) Red Salvia California poppy creamsicle Larkspur Imperial mox giant Mallow Zebrina Ice Plant Harlequin Catmint Cleome Mox Zinnea Profusion orange Mexican Sunflower Giant sunflowers Corncockle? Atlantic Dill Pumpkin seeds (harvested from my own 635 pounder) Sweet potato Vine cuttings Licorice plant seeds Rex begonia cuttings Ginger Ajuga (sp)

My trade list so far: Danielle -- purple irises, rose cuttings, and tomatoes for butterfly bush, hydrangea, and Pandora's box daylily Amybabyboy -- rose cuttings for purple sedum and belladonna lily Barbara -- Faerie queen foxgloves for dianthus Esh - Tagetes lucida for native azalea Lucyatlanta -- glads and dogwood for hostas Janen -- foxgloves for amaryllis and epimedium Let me know if I missed something. Also, I have a small hickory which grew from a squirrel-planted seed in a pot. Don' t know what kind it is. It's probably about 18" tall.

I always use bone meal for bulbs, it is good for root growth. The Osmocote and Miracle gro are generally good for every thing - osmocote is a slow release fertilizer so it feeds over a longer period. Miracle gro is mixed with water and is good for feeding rather quickly. A dilute formula of Miracle gro (less than the recommended rate) is good for seedlings in general. Based on the description of BioTone: "Bio Tone Starter Plus 4-3-3 is an all-natural bio-active granular plant food w/beneficial bacteria, humates & mycorrhizae; proven to enhance all aspects of plant growth; ideal for landscape installations.", that seems like a good one for new plants but doesn't seem specific to any TYPE of plant. Some plants like Liriope don't need any fertilizer. Many of the things you buy from the store already have some slow release granules in the pot (green, yellow, tan colored balls) and don't need fertilizer the first year. For established plants, I just feed with a thin layer of compost topped by mulch once a year. Here is a link that might be useful: Bone Meal