Oh don't you worry about the pot size! A large plant like this does need a large pot. Nurseries keep their plants in minimal sizes to save space. Whether you put it in a large pot, a huge planter or in the ground makes no difference. I am sure your plant will be much happier in there with some space. It has to be able to develop a good root system. And you don't want it to blow over in the wind either. I think the 'plants want to/need to be pot-bound' tale was just an invention of chronic overwaterers. Just remember, the larger the pot, the longer it takes to dry out. You will have to watch the plant and the soil until you get the feel for it, you don't want to keep it permanently soggy. But as long as it has a drainage hole this will hardly happen. The spot you have it in sounds good to me, just be careful of the sun in the beginning if this plant has been standing in a shady place or indoors until now. But - what are you going to do with it in winter?? Maddy

Generally these plants are shade grown so they should not be exposed to full sun. Each year, consider potting it up to the next size planter so its roots won't be against the plastic, exposed to the sun.

These are located in Southern California and seem to have some type of fungal infection. The leaves will crack at the base and then the new growth stops and the tall shoot dies. Is this a fungal infection? The browning on the vein of the leaf seems to make me think so and the way the leaf just folds over and cracks.

I second what Pam said. Vermiculite breaks down very quickly (physically - not by way of composting organisms), and perlite actually decreases o/a aeration before it starts to increase aeration when it becomes the primary soil ingredient by an overwhelming fraction. Perlite has a rough surface, but is not internally porous - it can't hold or exchange water or air from inside the particles, unlike particles like Turface, calcined DE, or pumice. If you start with exactly a cup or liter of soil, and add a particle of perlite, the volume of soil displaced is equal to the volume of the perlite particle. This is essentially like adding a golf ball to a pot of soil. The volume of the pot stays the same, but there is no aeration in the space occupied by the golf ball; therefore, the o/a % of aeration decreases, even while aeration in the soil surrounding the golf ball remains constant. The crux of the issue is, it's particle size that primarily determines what water retention will be. The smaller the particles in the medium, the more water it will hold, and the less air it can hold. When you start adding larger particles to a medium based on fine material (peat, compost, composted forest products, sand, topsoil, .....), o/a aeration actually and decreases until a threshold mixture of the contrasting particle sizes is reached. When the percentage/volume of coarse material reaches a fraction large enough that there is no longer a sufficient volume of fine material to fill all the valuable air spaces between the coarse particles, aeration begins to increase notably. Until that point, perlite serves more as ballast than anything else, and is much more valuable when it occurs in the medium in the space between the pot bottom and the upper limits of the perched water column. Understanding what a perched water column or 'table' is, why it occurs, how it affects root health - and by extension, the o/a health of the organism, and how to deal with it, is probably the most important part of becoming proficient at growing plants in pots. Ask if you have interest and I'll link you to an explanation here at Houzz/GW that's been active since 2005. You might also find this overview to be of interest. Al