There are upright and prostrate forms of P afra, and only the upright lends itself willingly to the formation of a heavy trunk. If you don't have the upright form, remind me come May, and I'll make sure you get started cuttings if you'd like them. Determining whether a soil is good or bad depends on what you're contrasting them with. MG isn't so bad when compared to all the other commercially prepared soils as a group, and that are commonly available and used for houseplants; but, on a scale of 1-10, with 10 being perfect and 1 being almost unusable, I'd rate it at about a 3-4 - LOTS of room for improvement. When you think of potting soils and what to use as your base, think of larger particles, like pine bark or other inorganic particles much larger than peat particles. In your mind's eye, picture a soil made of particles the size of BBs, and see all the healthy air spaces between the BBs. No matter how much water you pour on the soil, those air spaces won't fill with water. Now imagine a soil based on peat, compost, topsoil, sand ..... The air spaces between particles are very small and tend to fill up with water when you water - like you said the peat your plants are in does. If you mix the peat and BBs 50/50, the peat just fills in around the BBs, robbing the BBs of their air space, so a soil that has mostly larger particles and very few fine particles so the air spaces stay open is going to be much healthier for roots than a soil with all the little air pores filled with water. The primary difference between these two types of soils is that because the more open soils hold less water, you need to water more frequently. You'll need to decide if the extra effort is worth greater promise for your plants to grow to the potential they were genetically programmed for. There are 2 sides to that coin. Some feel the soils that I and many others grow in hold too little water, and robs them of the convenience of longer intervals between waterings, but since we build these soils with the plant's well being in mind, I know without doubt that soils that offer extended intervals between waterings hold too much water to NOT be limiting in their effect on growth and vitality. One of the most important considerations is that well-aerated and fast-draining soils are far more forgiving and much easier to grow in. They forgive your watering mistakes readily, as long as you don't FORGET to water, and make fertilizing easy. Because they promote such healthy root systems, they have the potential to produce much healthier plants with robust metabolisms that make the plant better able to resist insects and diseases. I'll leave you a link below to some information that explains the soil/water relationship. An understanding of the concept it defines almost automatically puts you far ahead of other container gardeners as a group. It shouldn't be too difficult to see what other growers that have read and applied it think. There are other threads similar to that one about other aspects of container culture, like nutritional supplementation, when/if you're ready to move on ..... or you can just not respond & I'll take that as a 'not interested'. The comments I left on YM's thread today might also be of interest. What my houseplant's feet are in: Al Here is a link that might be useful: I'd like to see you put this in your tool box!

I was on a searxh fpr a grey granite, too. Took Dh with me 2 different days. (Have white cabinets, but I didn't want a dark counter top. Have that now and can't stand it- too often I'll find places missed during clean-up that I couldn't see). He was SO much help- he picked out Blue Bahia. Yep, most expensive granite they had. Plus I didn't want blue. And we have a long countertop (133") without anywhere to put a seam that would look right. I finally went with my sweet wonderful DIL- we found granite heaven! OMG, they had some beautiful stuff (stuff I was afraid to even ask what level) Some turquiose slabs with true gold veins, another one called Blue Sky (I was almost willing to go blue for that one- truly the color look of the sky with puffy clouds). Found 5 we liked, took back DH & DS, showed them ONLY those. We ended up with Parisdiso Bash. It was meant to be. It's even long enough to not need a seam on my long counter. Keep searching for what you LOVE. When you see it, you'll know it. Angels will sing, you'll be doing the happy dance and you won't feel the least bit worried about your choice.

“you should measure your sink an inch longer than the vanity itself” makes no sense. Do you maybe mean the vanity counter or top? The reason for having the vanity top longer than the vanity box is that you will have a nice drip edge. That means that when water gets to the end of the vanity, it will dangle there and form a drop and drip to the floor instead of running down the side of the vanity. This is only a problem if you are planning to have water sitting on your counter top. That is why I asked how many sinks it will have. It may be an issue if you have sloppy people with a sink close to the end of the countertop (like when you have two sinks), but is no problem at all if you have one sink in the center of a 60” vanity. You would have to be pretty messy to have water dripping down the sides with one center sink.

This is a lazy grout clean-up. you should not see piled grout up in the corners. the tile matches the granite, but overall its a very busy look. These random bar tiles look best with solid countertops. You have a very busy looking, speckled granite. one solid color in a larger tile would look much better ***be very careful when choosing white tiles. You don't want a blueish or 'cool' white. your countertop has taupe or pink undertones. slightly beige, but not at all blue. So don't choose a blue or blue/gray based tile. mkay?** I like this 2x10 in a more modern stacked layout. comes in many colors. here's the flesh/blush and the white https://www.bedrosians.com/en/product/detail/makoto-tile/?itemNo=DECMAKKUB2510M but I'm kind of liking the matte black w/your kitchen and a grout that matches your stone or cabinets. BTW, way back I used to have that granite as my countertop. in 12x12 tiles! I think it was Almond Mauve. I had a tumbled marble tile as the backsplash and it went quite well together. Tumbled Chiaro marble (comes in all sizes andshapes, this is just a 4x4. I had this size. when grouted, the holes and pits are filled w/the grout) https://www.lowes.com/pd/9-Pack-Chiaro-Tumbled-Marble-Natural-Stone-Wall-Tile-Common-4-in-x-4-in-Actual-3-93-in-x-3-93-in/3110067 if you like the 'bars', they make a tumbled grecian white tile like this. the soft look and solid color would look nce w/your stone. In any case, if you ahve the same tile guy redo it, do not pay him until you are happy w/his grout clean up. and tell him to pay more attention to the corners and build up areas. Also, Grout should NEVER go in the joint between the countertop and the first row of tiles. That should be silicone caulk that matches your grout color. Ditto for the vertical corners.