1) You'll need to decide what is most appropriate for your purposes. The rule of thumb I use is: If a plant will be in the same soil for more than one growth cycle (longer than a year), I prefer to use the gritty mix, though in most cases there is nothing wrong with the 5:1:1 mix - it remains serviceable far longer than peat/coir/compost-based mixes. 2) The only way to extend watering intervals to upwards of a week w/o using an automatic watering device is to use a soil with enough fine particulates that it supports a fair measure of perched water. There's no sense in going through the effort of making either the 5:1:1 mix or the gritty mix if you're going to negate the very reason for making them in the first place (long-lasting aeration) for the sake of perceived convenience. You might as well stick with a soil from a bag that already has the water retention built into it. Al

> Thanks for all your work and observations greentoe... I am glad that this is of use. > I don't use the official gritty mix recipe for hanging plants. The added bulk density from the gravel is completely unnecessary. Yes! I agree - baskets hanging on anything less than a very reliable support need granite taken out and replaced with something. > I substitute pumice for less weight. Note that pumice has higher water retention capacity though in all those nooks and crannies than granite chips that have smoother surface. Particularly if the pumice particle sizes are smaller, you may need another adjustment, as smaller particles further retain more water than larger ones. > I need to get my hands on some DE because I think that will help reduce the bulk density even further by subbing out the turface. Oh, DE is lighter than turface? I did not know, as I only tried DE. > greentoe357 You said: It's not even two mixes. I also have an orchid mix now, a cactus&succulent mix and am slowly learning how... if you are already using gritty, wouldn't you just use it for cacti&succulents too? Just asking (I have just about all of my succs in gritty). Rina, Cacti often have naturally very small root systems, which makes large pots unnecessary (not harmful, like they would be with a more water-retentive mix - just unnecessary with gritty or another very well-draining mix). With very small pots, gritty mix's relatively large particles may become a problem - the mix may drain too fast and retain too little water - depending on how often you can/want to water. So I had to adjust the gritty recipe for very small pots - I did that by simply adding a bit of fine bark and by not screening the DE. You can also simply use the 511 mix instead of the gritty, although that is my less preferred thing for cacti in small pots. > I use "Gritty" for everything in a container grown indoors... from Orchids... Orchids! Jodi, I wonder how they are doing, compared in traditional orchid mixes, and how your care differs in it. I have not dared to venture into gritty mix for orchids. For more moisture-loving orchids, one part each of long sphagnum moss, coarse pine bark (coarser than for gritty mix, but orchid people would probably call it "medium") and coarse perlite do the trick for now in my zone indoors. For those that need to dry out more between waterings, I've tried mixes with more bark, hydroponic mediums added (growstone in my case), and/or moss eliminated - something along those lines. I might get Orchiata next spring and experiment with it as well, for both orchids and other plants as well. But I am always interested in what other orchid people are doing, to shorten my own learning curve. > I would add that you need eye protection to screen the bark, especially if it's reptibark and gloves, as they can give you splinters! That has not been my experience with my bark, true-blue, but I'll check how to edit the file more generally to mention eye protection, as it's a good point. I found nose and mouth protection to be more important in my case. I'd blow my nose with brown/red looking snot (sorry for details) after screening my bark - and this is even with wearing a face mask. And I got an absolutely nasty cough for a few hours after screening perlite - not a gritty mix component, but nasty stuff none-the-less. Now the first thing I do when working with perlite is shower hose it as soon as I open the bag, in order to keep the dust down. And I stopped screening it - you can't do it wet, and it just flies too much when dry, so if I can't use it out of the bag then it doesn't get used. Maybe I can screen it with a shower head instead of shaking the screen while dry - but then perlite dust will probably plug up my drain, as I have no outdoor space to do it. Anybody has done it indoors somehow successfully?

1) Al uses the gritty mix for containers he needs help lifting, and Al is hale. ;o) There really is no upper size limit, even for small plants if you're using a properly made gritty mix because it holds no (or very little) perched water. You need to be a little more cautious about the 5:1:1 mix - especially because there is a wide range in what you end up with as far as porosity/drainage, depending on what goes into it. 2) Over the long term, the gritty mix will outperform the 5:1:1 mix, but they're so close over the short hauls that I put anything 1-seasonal in the 5:1:1 mix. It's easier to make in large volumes and it's much less expensive. 3) It depends on what you use. I screen the Turface because of a size issue. The bark and granite I use are pre-screened, so I screen them over insect screen just to eliminate the dust. That's important to me because I grow many plants in pots an inch deep or less. I need to minimize every form of stress on those plants I can, and can't afford to have a thin layer of sludge at the bottom of these containers. It wouldn't make much difference in the deeper containers most of you would have your long term planting in. 4) "Crushed" is my own term. No 'crushing' is required as it comes in small, pre-screened pieces. I suppose granite chips would be more accurate, but I've noticed that habits are first cobwebs - then cables .... and so I'm prolly tied to 'crushed' unless I make myself think hard about it. ;o) 5) Schultz Aquatic Soil = Turface MVP. Calcined diatomaceous earth is a little different than Turface. It holds more water (on a size for size basis), has a better CEC, but also has a higher pH. Like unproven sources of calcined clay, calcined DE should be checked for stability by freezing in water over night. If it remains stable, it's ok to use. FWIW - I have a lot of maples (heavy on the Jap maples but also plenty of tridents & others) in the gritty mix, and have been enjoying very healthy trees for a long while. Your turn. ;o) Al

Please be careful not to turn my words around. I said, "I don't think you understand nutrition and soil science well enough yet to make the judgements you're making", which is quite different than insinuating you don't know what you're doing. Just because event B follows event A, is not necessarily evidence that A is the cause of B. Evidence, because so many have started and transplanted seedlings into the gritty mix and the 5:1:1 mix, strongly supports the idea that you're doing something wrong or inconsistent with a favorable outcome using a well-aerated soil, and I can say the same thing for Buzzsaw. I would be telling you the same thing, whether you were using MG soil, your own mixture, or any other soil. I have no idea how you made the soil, but if it contains ingredients other than the ones listed, it's not one of the soils I recommended. You mentioned coffee grounds in the soil. Here is something I left only a few days ago on the soil/composting forum: Forum discussions frequently center on the question of adding dilute coffee/tea or grounds to plants as a 'tonic', but Arabica (coffee) and Camellia (tea) are known for their toxic alkaloid (caffeine) content and their allelopathic affect on plants as well as autotoxic (poison to their own seedlings) effects on future generations. Caffeine interferes with root development by impairing protein metabolism. This affects activity of an important bio-compound (PPO) and lignification (the process of becoming woody), crucial steps for root formation. We also know that the tannins in both coffee and tea are known allelopaths (growth inhibitors). There are ongoing experiments to develop herbicides using extracts from both coffee and tea that cause me to want to say they might serve better as a nonselective herbicide than as a tonic. I would not use either (stale coffee or tea) by applying directly to my plants - especially containerized plants; nor would I add tea bags/coffee grounds to my container soils. It's entirely possible you've compromised your plants ability to grow to their potential via your inclusion of the coffee grounds or one of the other extras you're using. Al Here is a link that might be useful: The thread I quoted from