Since the reference to "Molbak's" would lead me to believe you live close to that nursery, I'd suggest you visit one or two others in the area (like Emery's in Lynnwood) and take a look at the Gardner & Bloome bagged soil products. Heck, maybe even Molbak's carries this line - it is extremely popular here in the PNW. These are the highest quality prepared soils I have found and I use a variety of them......with no amending. They contain minimal amounts of peat, have good texture, durability and are fast draining.

Earlier this week I exchanged email with Emily Colleti who is in charge of the care of the entire aroid greenhouse at the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, MO on this very subject. Her boss, Dr. Tom Croat, has collected more Anthurium and aroid species than any living human being and the point of many conversations has been the soil mixtures they use for Anthurium and Philodendron species. They grow Anthurium in both pots and hanging baskets lined with moss or mesh and filled with a bark, potting mix, charcoal mixture. As Emily explained in a private conversation at the 2008 International Aroid Show show in Miami she uses a mixture of 4 scoops of bark along with 3 scoops of medium Sequoia orchid bark and then 1 scoop of America's Best aromatic cedar mulch is added to the porous and very porous potting mix used at the garden (4 scoops) To that she adds 1/2 to 1 scoop of granulated charcoal. She mixes this in individual buckets until she has enough to fill the pot or basket. The mix is kept damp but not wet and especially the birds nest Anthurium forms (Section Pachyneurium) are allowed to dry out for at least a month each year since this is very natural in the rain forest. We adopted this mix many years ago but Emily also began to recently recommend adding a good helping of finely cut sphagnum moss to the mix.

I think here it's called coconut coir and it's replacing peat in a lot of applications. I think as a replacement for peat in a container mix it can be a good option. It's higher in water retention but has a lower pH than peat. I think it also breaks down slower. The higher water retention may mean using less of it and more pine bark chips perhaps. Here's an article on it. http://www.finegardening.com/getting-coir-matter

Hi all - I posted this in the wrong forum yesterday! I have a 2-3 year old ficus lyrata. The first year it was doing well but I decided to prune the roots last year and use regular potting mix. Below is the roots untrimmed. I cut off half the roots - maybe too much. 4-6 leaves shed after this but it shot up tall and produced 4 sets of leaves. It was trying to grow new leaves near the existing ones but they dried and shriveled up. I was bad in winter and didn't water it much due to fungus gnats. It then lost many more leaves due to my neglect. This year (it's spring in Sydney but cold atm) I decided to try the gritty mix (diatomite, decomposed granite which was very clay like and pine bark). I washed out all the old soil and did no root pruning because it looked ill. The roots had not grown much over the year - it actually looked like it lost roots or that it was growing gangly. There were heaps of these wire worms(?) in the old soil too. It looks like it wants to shed more leaves and I'm afraid I made it worse. Would really like some help as to what to do. Eventually I would like it to regrow leaves in the bare parts but not sure if this is possible. It has always lived outside but not in direct sun. It has a tendency to grow really tall. I would some day like to prune it so it isn't so tall and let it branch out. What can I do to make it healthy? Should I not water it too much at the moment? Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks Sam