Anurag - the thread about container soils and water retention was written with the hope that those reading it would come away with an understanding of how water behaves in soils, & particularly how particle size and other physical characteristics impact perched water retention and o/a water retention. It's up to the grower to decide what he/she wants to do - how diligently they want to work at reducing the amount of excess water their soils hold. 1:1:1, screened bark:screened Turface:grit is the most productive soil I've used, but I don't use it for everything. Veggies & plants I know are only going to live a year of go 1 year between repots, usually go in the 5:1:1 mix. All of my woody plants, housep0lants including succulents, and other plants I know will be in the same soil for 2 growth cycles or longer, go in the gritty 1:1:1 mix. The 1:1:1 and 5:1:1 ratios are guidelines, but they're good ones. They minimize the amount of perched water a soil holds, and the gritty mix makes a good run at maximizing the volume of water held inside soil particles while still offering additional adjustability. If you live in a rainy climate and you're using the gritty mix, you might want to increase the amount of grit and decrease the amount of Turface commensurately. If it's dry where you live, increase the Turface and decrease the grit - but make sure that the soil holds enough water to carry you through the dry days, but not so much your plant suffers during periods of prolonged rain. Shading the pots when it's hot is very helpful. High soil/root temps is one of the primary limiting factors for container growers. I like soluble synthetic fertilizers. There is no more efficient way to ensure your plants get what they need, when they need it, at the right ratio, and in a favorable o/a concentration. How you fertilize is up to you, but soluble synthetics make fertilizing almost foolproof, as long as the grower holds up his/her end of the deal. When you root prune, the object is to eliminate large roots that aren't attached to the trunk and are in unfavorable positions to make room for and increase the number of fine roots, which do all the work except anchoring and transport. You'll need to develop a feel for root pruning because all plants don't get the same treatment. Reread the thread about water movement in soil, and the one about trees in containers. Make sure you understand what's in those threads. If you do gain that understanding, it should make a significant difference in what you get back for your efforts. Best luck. Al

Kitchendetective, it's not like we started out with a real sentence in the first place. "Flowers sitting in a pot under the sun loves to bloom." Would have actually made sense if it said: Flowers sitting in a pot under the sun love to bloom. Since the only rule is to change one word, I'd think there's no reason you couldn't just make a word salad, and have nonsense like: Mary hosing out the boy under the influence wanting to play, or Mary taking out the boy under the influence wanting to dribble. Anyway, my next submission is: Mary taking out the boy under my influence wanting to play.

why was there a limit of 5 words put on this anyway So the game would go faster and people wouldn't end up skipping posts because it was taking them so long thinking of words. Plus... I just like to see who can follow the rules. LOTS of rebels here at the KT! lol

since