It is certain that as rainy season arrives, such moistened air can indeed make a home feel cool. If you go into detail about cool air, and its ability to hold on to moisture and then add heat from a furnace, such moisture then is more intense. Warm air holds more water. Sometimes where rooms are situated, how air is allowed to pass through and around, can affect a room if there is a direct route to an outside door. A burning fireplace draws air from the room its in, and will draw air from surrounding rooms. This often can cause cold air at the bottom ..at floor level, to feel cool on legs and feet. The fire must have air and will steal it from wherever it can. This is why some fires it is prescribed to open a window a crack. Houseplants, if they number many, can put some effect into a room with the moisture they contain....but really, they'd have to be in numbers to make such difference. I cant believe a couple, even a few, could make such a difference you'd feel it. Mind you, its a way to give moisture to a plant by giving it company of others. Where air vents supply heat to a room and another room is in direct course to the vent, I think it can affect the two rooms. Plants put in direct path of such air, will definitely feel the effect and depending on how close, can be adversely affected. In that regard, just raising the plant by placing on a table, or pedestal or hanging up, will prevent any harm. Where it feels cool, put on a sweater and think of others experiencing deep freezes and snow....lots of snow. But today, it got up into the fifties...people are out in shorts can you believe.

Yes thse are the right ingredients, but the recipe is not as important as the reasoning behind it. You need fast drainage and for that you need a large particle size for the medium. The ratio of those ingredients is going to depend on the plant being grown and the environment in which it is grown. For instance a jade plant in Arizona is going to need a mix that retains more moisture than a jade plant in Florida or Louisiana. Most people underestimate how much moisture gravel can retain. I have succulents in a 3:1 mix of pea gravel:turface in Los Angeles that has very low humidity and no rain in the summer. The bark and turface are moisture retentive while the grit is not. You will probably want more grit in your mix than bark or turface. But then granite gravel (poultry grit) is very heavy. Because of that many people substitute 3/8" lava rock (scoria or cinder) for the granite. That said, if you start with equal parts of the three ingredients you have listed you will be off to a good start. They get their nutrients from either a controlled release fertilizer that gets mixed in to the planting medium or from a water soluble fertilizer that gets mixed in with the irrigation water. Make sure to get a fertilizer with micronutrients as well.. No, a mister spray bottle is not right. You want to thoroughly wet the container medium by watering until water comes pouring out the bottom of the pot. Read this link for information about container media. Here is a link that might be useful: Container media

The smell is hard to describe. Kinda like a bad primer smell mixed in with insulation and damp.. Hard to pinpoint. Not a musty moldy smell because I know what that is and EVERYTHING in this house is new. There is a vapor barrier under the concrete, I know because I cut through to add to the plumbing. I did put plastic down again and new concrete over. The concrete floor was painted with Zissner's sealer as well as all the wood floors prior to carpet. I thought it could be coming from the ground even through everything is foam sealed - but can't get every square inch. Having said that, just last week I added to gable vents at the peak of the front part of the house and I have noticed a change in smell. I think the insulation smell is gone. I believe the attic got so hot it began to come in around the recessed lights and other fixtures. Stupid contractor sided over the old gable vents. So when I walked into the house the other day when I arrived here, it smelled like dampness- water basically - 60% humidity. If I run the dehumidifier it seems to go away. This house is in a forrest although I had all my trees removed there are plenty of others. So dampness, rotting tree roots, leaves, etc is present all the time. I'm also a few miles from the ocean and the ground is basically sand. Tough to paint the real picture but I was just commenting because it is frustrating when you renovate an entire house and still get a sniff of something not right.

A big storm blew thru our area, the meteorologists called it a "derecho". Blew down 3 trees, which squashed our camper, kayaks. One big tree broke the tops out of 4 other trees as it fell, smashed up our roof, siding and came to rest on our deck. It broke rafters and the deck railing and supports, warped everything and slightly pulled the deck away from the house. No power or water for 4 days. 100+ temperatures. It has been kind of exciting around here. On the bright side, we were not home when the trees actually fell, so it didn't scare us. And everything is insured, so no troubles there. The only thing not insured was our small sailboat and the trunk of the tree missed it by 4 " ! No damage at all. Power and water restored this morning, not looking forward to dumping contents of refrig, though! My husband and daughter baked me a birthday pineapple upside down cake with a cast iron Dutch oven and charcoal briquettes ; ) Neighbors and community all pulled together, out cutting up trees to open up roads and helping to clear up damage. Sharing ice and gasoline. Checking on each other. The way people are supposed to behave. ; ) Feling very grateful.