Hi, Pam. Maybe I can explain things a little better if I use an example. Obviously, I think the grower's soil choice when establishing a planting for the long term is the most important decision he/she will make. There is no question that the roots are the heart of the plant, and plant vitality is inextricably linked in a hard lock-up with root vitality. In order to get the best from your plants, you absolutely must have happy roots. If you start with a water-retentive medium, like a bagged soil, you cannot improve it's aeration or drainage characteristics by adding less than very significant fractions of larger particulates. Sand, perlite, Turface, calcined DE ...... none of them will work. To visualize why sand and perlite can't change drainage/aeration, think of how well a pot full of BBs would drain (perlite), then think of how poorly a pot full of pudding would drain (bagged soil). Even mixing the pudding and perlite/BBs together 1:1 in a third pot yields a mix that retains the drainage characteristics and PWT height of the pudding. It's only after the perlite become the largest fraction of the mix (60-75%) that drainage & PWT height begins to improve. At that point, you're growing in perlite amended with a little potting soil. You cannot add coarse material to fine material and improve drainage or reduce the ht of the PWT. Use the same example as above & replace the pudding with play sand or peat moss - same results. The benefit in adding perlite to heavy soils doesn't come from the fact that they drain better. The fine peat or pudding particles simply 'fill in' around the perlite, so drainage & the ht of the PWT remains the same. All perlite does in heavy soils is occupy space that would otherwise be full of water. Perlite simply reduces the amount of water a soil is capable of holding because it is not internally porous. IOW - all it does is take up space. If you want to profit from a soil that offers superior drainage and aeration, you need to build it into the soil from the start, by ensuring that the soil is primarily comprised of particles much larger than those in peat/compost/coir, which is why the recipes I suggest as starting points all direct readers to START with the most significant fraction of the soil being large particles, to ensure excellent aeration. From there, if you choose, you can add an appropriate volume of finer particles to increase water retention. You do not have that option with a soil that is already extremely water-retentive right out of the bag. I fully understand that many are happy with the results they get when using commercially prepared soils, and I'm not trying to get anyone to change anything. My intent is to make sure that those who are having trouble with issues related to their soil(s), understand why the issues occur, that there are options, and what they are. Learning Some people are perfectly content, growing in/with whatever is easiest, and can't understand all the fuss when what they do 'works for them'. I look at growing in containers like a journey up a mountain, with millions of people on the path. The way-points represent our abilities, knowledge, and our level of understanding. We all travel at different speeds, but some, in their hurry to get to the crest, pass way-point after way-point, leaving behind those content to check in for an extended stay in the foothills. Some people have scoffed and asked what good all your reading and studying will do. They think experience is the most important, but I can tell you it isn't. You're on the right path. What good is 20 years of experience if you do the same thing over and over? What if you're doing something wrong - or there is a better way? Isn't that 20 years of experience wasted? More times than I can possibly count, I have seen advice to do this or that, that makes no sense from the scientific perspective. In the same vein, observations made that attribute an affect to an impossible cause are extremely common. The more pieces of the puzzle we have to work with, the easier it is to see the big picture clearly, which is why learning is so beneficial to increasing our effort:reward quotient. I think though, that the most important aspect of accumulating knowledge lies in our ability accurately validate our observations. Growers who have taken the time to understand the science behind what makes plants grow well, can make observations within the limits of what science allows, instead of making up science to fit their observations. This gives folks like you, who really want to learn and understand, a great advantage over those taking a more laissez faire (literally: leave things alone) approach. You'll be able to resolve issues by accurate assessment, instead of guesswork; and you'll be able to eliminate most of the trial and error associated with those that rely on experience only. Your experience(s) will be validation of your storehouse of knowledge, instead of your source of knowledge. Why is this a better arrangement? Because the more you know, the more difficult it is to assume in error, and the easier it is to winnow the possibilities to get to the probabilities. I applaud you and everyone else making an individual effort to learn about growing in containers and to expand their understanding. Al

What season are you growing these Calibrachoa hybrids in? Are your hanging baskets covered by a roof or any other structure? Etc, it is possible but unfortunately they just aren't weather proof for most garden situations, even containers. No matter where you live. They dont like to be crowded by other plants as air circulation is of life threatening importance because of the plethora of moulds and fungus and root pathogens they are susceptible to. So cannot even be used in mixed plantings, surely they will die as the other plants cannot survive without regular water. Those marketing these plants have been changing the goal posts for consumers ever since these things first appeared. The perfect, easy, self cleaning, heat loving garden plant tough as boots, is suddenly now only for containers with complete protection, perfect PH, in temperate climates with no rain and clear blue skies indefinitely and vitally timed applications of chemical ..........of course consumers have been buying them by the "millions" because of the hype and are having disastrous results. It's fraud plain and simple. We wouldn't buy fruit that you couldn't eat and it's in fact illegal to sell fruit in many countries that wont ripen once picked or is an unsatisfactory cultivar. Consumers don't seem to get the same protection with plants and producers can say anything. What is interesting is to read the sites on the net for producers, mostly PDF files, they explain how to grow on the plugs to sell to retailers. It's not easy! Not at all. Some even say as much. They are susceptible to almost every pathogen known to infect plants in production. Growers have to rely heavily on chemical solutions many which are not (even if they were environmentally friendly) available to home growers. They aren't however environmentally friendly and it's irresponsible to create a demand for their usage. Even if we all were sloshing nasty chemicals all over the place the plants are again critically sensitive to dosage, type and timing of application. Without a doubt it is true that the production of bedding plants generally are a nightmare of chemical pollution already. Treated as throw away plants after and the environmental footprint left behind is completely unacceptable. Without diminishing your success you might just have benefited from recent heavy or specific grower applications of chemicals, hormones etc long enough to get some results in a very protected site. I've even resorted to umbrellas to keep them dry, they just cannot take average normal wet conditions, whether from passing rain or watering. Establishing them in the ground is impossible. I've had only very limited success using almost pure acidic sand. Whatever you do even in containers, with the right PH If you plant three two will die almost immediately. One might or might not persist but never ever the "all Spring and Summer long" rubbish they tell consumers. Here's the thing, these are sold and bred as bedding and container plants, the things you stick in anywhere in full sun for instant colour that flower themselves to death with minimal care. However they are in fact a highly specialised plant to grow, best suited for green house conditions, however the effort for such a short lived woody plant makes that not terribly rewarding either. They hate disturbance as well so transplanting is almost impossible even from pot to container. These are hybrids of many species of Calibrachoa (lovely name) and as such one would expect some kind of almost manic hybrid vigour. Unfortunately it seems the aggregate of the species is even more difficult than the individual species to grow as a result of all this breeder effort.

Well CC you must have the same doctor as me! "Maybe you have asthma" they said. "But I've never had asthma in my life" I replied. "Well maybe the flu is bringing on a bout of asthma. " So let me get this straight, I don't have asthma except once or twice a year when I get the flu and then I have asthma?" "Well you never know" they say, "Try this nebulizer with a bronchial dialator and take this steriod inhaler sample that we had in the back closet home and see if that works." Nope, it does not work, and no, the antibiotics don't work, and no, the steroids don't work. I am very leery of all this because my friend was misdiagnosed with asthma and was treated for ten years with ever increasingly strong steroids and in the meantime she had a rare, undaignosed esophagal problem. In the end, her esophagus was the size of an 8 month baby and her ovaries had been destroyed by the steroids, along with her bones and eyes, which she now has cataracts on. All because someone summarily diagnosed her with "asthma." Which is why to me saying "asthma" means you just don't know and don't want to take the time to make an expensive diagnosis. And taking frequent courses of antibiotics can also wreak havoc with your health, as happened with my friend who ended up with chronic yeast infections from overuse of antibiotics for ear infections. And I have to take them for my chronic urinary tract infections as it stands. So I am at risk for developing "superbugs" in my system which my doctor should be well aware of if s/he looked at my medical history. Anyway, chronic bronchitis means you have it for two months or more and get it more than once a year. This problem has been ongoing for me for four years. And I have had a two month cough at other times in my life, although it is starting to now happen more frequently. So there's probably some kind of genetic weakness there. I have irritable bowel syndrome, interstitial cystitis, and migranes, which are all inflammatory problems so why should my lungs get left out! So I may also have GERD in the mix but I don't think it is all attributable to that. Not sure how much modern medicine has to offer this condition. It's hard because I am ordinarily an active person and I have a job that requires me to by physically active for long periods of time. My whole life is sort of grinding to a halt due to lack of energy. I had to drop out of school this semester and important things I need to do to get moved to a new place closer to work are languishing. I basically make it through a day of work and then exhaustedly drive home and go to bed, only to start it up again the next day. Whine, whine, whine. And I can't even enjoy a glass of REAL wine!

I don't have the slightest idea which vinca it was....I was a kid in a candy store at the nursery this spring, picking out things that were foreign to me since IMPW was always my go to bedding. I really liked my experience with the vinca's as not only will I not be on Water Watch, but now I can plant them in bulb sections and not be worried about bulb rot. This year, some of my beds did not look that great, but this was moreso me experimenting with unknown plant characteristics like the New Guinea's. Their stalks are like cucumbers - crissp..I was teaching my 3 1/2 year old scooting around with the bike and one slight brush against the stalk, and the main stem just snapped right off ;0( I even made it a point to look at other plants beds as I drove around this year.....looks like many have resorted to the larger taller landscape begonia's. From afar, they look great - personally, not a fan of the foliage.