A few suggestions might include any orchid grower/greenhouses if you can find one... sometimes, they will carry different sizes of pine bark. Home improvement stores often carry a ton of different mulch items, but you'll have to check bags carefully for content and size.

Let's see... oh, possibly any hydroponic type stores or garden centers that carry bonsai... or they might be able to recommend somewhere...

I usually mix small batches, so I just buy the small bag of ReptiBark and sift out the larger bits, but I have found fir or pine bark at home improvement centers before.

I wish I lived in your area... I'd be happy to help more if I knew where to look... perhaps someone else can chime in with more info for you... anyone?

Wish I could help you too about the bark!

It's quite expensive here in Canada and I used reptibark as well (24L bags). The pieces were too big, so I put them through a cheap blender in batches and then sifted accordingly. All other suitable bark I've seen is 2-3x even more $$.

I imagine in NJ you should have much better luck than I do on this side of the border.

Dry bark is relatively light, as weight goes, so you might even want to think about having some shipped in. There are lots of orchid growers online and other sources where you can buy it already weighed and bagged, or possibly even in bulk if that's your preference.

Prices and sizes will vary, but doing a little research online might help you find what you're looking for... and you may even run into a sale or free shipping or something... one never knows!

If I'm not mistaken, there's an orchid grower in southern Wisconsin or thereabouts called Oak Hill Gardens. I'm sure they have a website. I do believe they have bark in different sizes you can order by the bag. If not, orchid growers and the like are some of the most likely places to find that sort of thing.

They should have each average size of particle graded, like small, medium or large, and priced accordingly... just another suggestion.

Thanks ewwmayo and rooftopbklyn...I do have a large bag of the repti bark so I will screen it and maybe try to put it through a cheap blender. Thank you Jodik... I will check out the place you recommended in Wisconsin too. I also contacted the orchid society in New Jersey. They said that they do a bulk order in January and they would let me know. The orchid bark is good for the gritty right? I'm assuming it comes in different sizes, so I can tell them what size I need? I appreciate all your help!!!!

If the bark they use is pine bark, then yes... perfect. I would stay away from coco-coir products or other types of wood.

Within Al's article, link below, the sizes and kind needed for the medium recipes are listed, I do believe.

Container Soils - Water Movement & Retention XXII

You can ask your local orchid place if they can obtain exactly what you want.

Good luck! If needed, we'll try to help further!

Thank you Jodik...you have been very helpful. Don't know why I'm so nervous to make the gritty. It was so easy to find the turface and chicken grit, but the bark seems to be more difficult. It's also the wrong time of year lol. I won't repot til the spring, so I do have time. I know it's best for the plants to wait, but I'm so excited to get them into a great mix where they can really takeoff! I will keep you posted and I'm definitely going to attend an orchid society meeting if possible...it can't hurt right? Thanks again have a great day!

Oh, no problem... happy to help! :-)

I remember when I first switched from bagged, peat based potting soil that every store sells to a more porous way of keeping the roots of my container plants healthy, and how nervous I was. I didn't know exactly what I was looking for, where to find it, how to use it... if it hadn't been for Al, Mike, Josh, Laura, plantgal, and a few others here, I might have given up. But I'm sure glad I didn't! They answered all my questions, no matter how dumb I thought I sounded, and they helped me every step of the way. I just kept reading this forum with my coffee every morning, and I kept learning.

Just take your time... use winter to locate some sources, do some internet research, and some reading of back-threads here in the forum... I did a lot of Googling, using key words like Gritty Mix, bonsai culture and soils, porous mediums for plants, orchid barks, etc... and I really learned. It all fell into place. Knowledge is key, I think.

When spring rolls around, you'll have your stuff ready, and you'll have a little more confidence in the concepts you're about to use. That's the important part... understanding how the concept works, and why you're using it. The science is solid, and Al explains it in his article in layman's terms, so it was easy for me to grasp. I finally understood the workings under the soil, and without healthy roots, a plant can't be happy and healthy.

I must have read Al's article - the one I linked above in my previous post - over a dozen times, just to make certain I got what he meant. I copied and pasted it to a text file and left it in a folder on my desktop so I could refer to it whenever I needed.

My husband built me a screening system using various sizes of hardware cloth attached to the tops of 5 gallon buckets so I could screen my ingredients to the size I needed.

I also thought a lot about what I was planting, where it would be positioned for the season (indoor or out), and I kept following these guys, here... reading about what they were doing, following the questions others asked and the answers Al was giving them.

Now, when I need to re-pot my bulbs... my plants of choice are Amaryllis bulbs... I already know exactly where to get what I need, or I already have a batch mixed. I just make sure the bark and other ingredients are saturated well before potting. And when I water, I know the water will run out quickly because of how porous and free-draining the mix is, and I already have them either at my kitchen sink, in my shower stall, or outside where it won't matter if water drains out.

I water, wait a little bit for it to drain, then water again to ensure there's adequate moisture down at the root zone.

Al can probably tell you more about feeding, but I use what I have available which is MG liquid 12-4-8. I mix a weak solution... probably somewhere around 1/4 or less of the recommended strength... and I feed every time I water to make certain my plants have a steady supply of nutrition. Every once in a while, I flush with clear water. When autumn rolls around I back off a bit to let them have their natural resting period, when growth slows naturally. I'd actually use Foliage Pro plant food if I could afford to buy it, but since I already have this plant food, I'm kinda stuck with it. :-)

The beauty of using a medium that doesn't hold perched water is that it's almost impossible to over-water. And with bulbs, rot is a real problem when they're grown in containers. That, in fact, is what brought me here. I was searching for a way to keep my bulb collection from continually rotting. It was so frustrating!

When you think about it, we just take for granted that the gardening industry has what we need. We don't really stop to think that like every other industry, they're in it to make profit. The more replacement plants you buy, and the more bags of soil you use, the more money they make. But we keep losing our plants to conditions under the soil surface that we never really think about.

So, anyway... don't be nervous... take your time, do some reading... gather what you'll need... make sure you understand how and why the concepts work, and go for it in spring. And we'll be here to answer any questions, or help you if you run into a problem... once you adjust to the slight difference, you'll love it. You'll see the difference in how happy and healthy your plants are.

Another tip... once you re-pot, keep your freshly potted plants out of direct sunlight so they can acclimate to their new situation. Gradually work them back into full sun or direct light, depending on indoor or outdoor conditions.

Al also has a couple of other articles floating around the forum... one on feeding and plant nutrition, I believe... and one on growing trees in pots and root pruning. Those are worth a read, too.

Happy Growing... and remember, there's always someone here to help if you need it. :-)

Have a nice day!

jersey21

It sounds like you have some passion about this, which is great, and I encourage you to capitalize on it even though the season is wrong.

I first found this place at the end of a season, and made my first (unsuccessful, due to not screening the reptibark..) batch of gritty mix about this time of year. I knew it was the wrong time of year, I couldn't find many many things easily due to season, but, I also couldn't wait :)

Everyone's standard of living is different, but if you can afford a bag of reptibark, cheap tropical plants abound in big box stores all winter long, and while you'll definitely lose some, you can get started now, have some fun, learn some stuff, and be perfectly positioned to have a most excellent season next year!

Small pachira ("money tree") or schefflera ("umbrella tree") are great guinea pigs, as long as you're OK potentially losing/killing them. Usually both come with 3 - 5 plants in each pot, sold as a single plant. You can separate them into individual pots and play mad scientist with little downside. Bonus: get a cheap CFL bulb and a hardware store clip on light socket, and watch the difference.

And then, once next season comes into it's own, the whole plant rhythm/cycle and how much it affects how they respond to your actions, combined with nice weather, will make it very obvious the effect of keeping your work in sync with the plants natural cycle.

anyway, maybe a heartbreaking approach for some, but some may find it a worthwhile way to stay connected with plants during our awful east coast winters. And I did manage to keep some things alive, just want to say... you can too.

Daniel

You both have been wonderful. I have been reading for over a year now and constantly bookmarking. I think you're right in that I need to go back and re read. I do like Daniel's idea of experimenting too with inexpensive plants that I'm not yet attached to. You have both put me at ease and I'm taking a deep breath and relaxing about all of this. It's nice to know that you're both here and so willing to help. I have a lot of plants and I'm amazed that I have kept so many alive over the years (11 figs, 12 citrus and many more) and ,of course, I've lost a fair share, but it's exciting to know that I can get them to really take off. I have learned so much, but I've still got a long way to go. Thank you all for great explanations and patience too. It's much appreciated!!

Because of the type of the plant I had, and the problems with rot I was experiencing, I didn't have much choice but to jump in. At the time, I had quite a large collection of Amaryllids, including a couple of hundred hybrid varieties and several different types of other bulbs in the same general family... rain lilies, Sprekelia, Scadoxus, and others.

Bulb after bulb succumbed to issues with rotting, whether down at root level or closer to the soil surface on the bulb, itself, where I could see it happening.

I tried everything I could think of, took recommendations from people without really thinking them through or vetting anything... I was kind of panicked, not wanting to lose not only my own investment in bulbs, but many were gifts that I really wanted to keep alive and see bloom.

I tried anti-fungal remedies, and I must have switched soils half a dozen times, trying what others were using... but not taking into consideration the variables involved, like some people living in warmer climates and growing their bulbs outdoors, or whatever the case might have been. I even went so far as to perform surgery on some bulbs, removing the rotting sections, dusting the bulb's wounds with anti-fungal powder, and re-potting to try to save them... not realizing I was dooming them to the same conditions that caused the rot in the first place.

When I stumbled on Al's article about "Container Soils - Water Movement & Retention" and read it, it was like something clicked. I finally understood what I'd been doing wrong.

I'd been drowning the roots of my bulbs. I'd been allowing them to sit in soil types that couldn't possibly dry out in time for the roots to obtain what they needed, but not remain stuck in swampy conditions underneath soil level where they couldn't get the oxygen they required.

Like I said, it took a little adjustment learning to work with a more porous medium, but now I have really nice bulbs that grow well, and I haven't had rot issues since. I also haven't had fungus gnats since.

Now, when I re-pot a bulb or group of bulbs, what I see are healthy, fleshy roots and healthy basal plates on the bottom of each bulb... something very important to the growth of bulbs.

One of the variables we each have to remember is that none of us will have exactly the same growing conditions to contend with. I have limitations that are difficult to correct because of how my one room apartment is set up, and where the best light is in relation to the heating and cooling systems - which are right across the room from one another. I find it difficult to maintain decent humidity and a steady temperature, mainly during winter months. During warm months, I have the option of taking my potted plants outside.

You're absolutely right... patience plays a pretty big role in any type of gardening. And, as far as I'm concerned, it's supposed to be relaxing! :-)

I think, though, now that I truly understand what happens - or what's supposed to happen - under the medium surface, I'm much more at ease growing containerized plants. I don't worry so much anymore whether or not the plants' roots are sitting in soup! I know they're okay. And because the medium holds its structure much better, I don't have to re-pot so often.

Maybe it would be to your advantage to try an inexpensive starter plant or two in a grittier mix and see the difference now... before spring rolls around... although, depending on your locality, you'll have to remember that it's more of a resting period where plant growth is concerned. It's up to you. But it might help you get a feel for what you'll be working with.

Whatever you decide, there's usually someone here to help with questions or problems. I don't think I've had to wait more a day or two for someone to respond.

Happy Gardening!

Thanks Jodik...I do like the idea of experimenting on something small and not all of the plants that I'm attached to. I now understand why, after potting up and watering, the water didn't really wet the soil. I would water and it would come out of the drainage hole, yet when I stuck a wooden stick in the soil it would be completely dry. I did some root pruning this summer and did make the 511. My plants are absolutely better, yet I always seem to struggle with the pine bark. I've tried all different types and they seem to vary greatly. I believe I have a better handle on it now. I just need to be patient and wait for spring.

I did have a question regarding vinegar. I think I've only read it on the citrus forum, but would it apply to all plants when your tap water is between 7-8? Are there any books you would recommend regarding basic issues? I don't want to become a nuisance and bother people with silly questions. I have been adding 1/2 tbs per gallon when I water my herbs, lavendar, ficus and various others. They all seem fine plus I add pro-tekt and foliage pro. I'm hoping I'm on the right track!! Thanks again and have a great night

Don't be silly... the only silly question is the one you don't ask! :-)

We all need answers... so, don't worry.

Myself, I don't worry too much about water because the way I usually work it is collecting the half empty bottled water that everyone drinks, and using it instead of city tap water or well water. With grandkids, you'd be surprised at how many bottles half emptied I find around the house! They go directly into my watering can, or into the dog's bowl. I never waste a drop. I also collect rainwater and use it.

But I don't mind telling you, that's not exactly my area of expertise... the pH in water part.

I think if you do a search in this forum for posts by Tapla, you may find one on water and pH, and how he handles it. I wish I could help further... and I'm sure someone else can...

Hey, you guys! A little help, here, please?! :-)