Anurag - the thread about container soils and water retention was written with the hope that those reading it would come away with an understanding of how water behaves in soils, & particularly how particle size and other physical characteristics impact perched water retention and o/a water retention. It's up to the grower to decide what he/she wants to do - how diligently they want to work at reducing the amount of excess water their soils hold. 1:1:1, screened bark:screened Turface:grit is the most productive soil I've used, but I don't use it for everything. Veggies & plants I know are only going to live a year of go 1 year between repots, usually go in the 5:1:1 mix. All of my woody plants, housep0lants including succulents, and other plants I know will be in the same soil for 2 growth cycles or longer, go in the gritty 1:1:1 mix. The 1:1:1 and 5:1:1 ratios are guidelines, but they're good ones. They minimize the amount of perched water a soil holds, and the gritty mix makes a good run at maximizing the volume of water held inside soil particles while still offering additional adjustability. If you live in a rainy climate and you're using the gritty mix, you might want to increase the amount of grit and decrease the amount of Turface commensurately. If it's dry where you live, increase the Turface and decrease the grit - but make sure that the soil holds enough water to carry you through the dry days, but not so much your plant suffers during periods of prolonged rain. Shading the pots when it's hot is very helpful. High soil/root temps is one of the primary limiting factors for container growers. I like soluble synthetic fertilizers. There is no more efficient way to ensure your plants get what they need, when they need it, at the right ratio, and in a favorable o/a concentration. How you fertilize is up to you, but soluble synthetics make fertilizing almost foolproof, as long as the grower holds up his/her end of the deal. When you root prune, the object is to eliminate large roots that aren't attached to the trunk and are in unfavorable positions to make room for and increase the number of fine roots, which do all the work except anchoring and transport. You'll need to develop a feel for root pruning because all plants don't get the same treatment. Reread the thread about water movement in soil, and the one about trees in containers. Make sure you understand what's in those threads. If you do gain that understanding, it should make a significant difference in what you get back for your efforts. Best luck. Al

Stick with dolomitic lime for 5-1-1. The bark and peat are very acidic and there is otherwise no calcium or magnesium in the mix. I'm no math genius. (I'm actually a cook.) I figure you should use 15 gallons of bark and 3 gallons each of peat and perlite. Then add one tablespoon of lime for each gallon of finished mix. So you need 21 T, or about 1 1/4 cup of lime. I add an equal amount of the controlled release fertilizer, but that is optional. What I actually do is have a few buckets of different sizes that I've measured. I make 21 gallons of mix at a time using a 5-gallon bucket and a 3-gallon bucket. I measure the bark in the 5-gallon bucket, using three of them. Then I use the three gallon bucket to scoop up one bucket each of the perlite and peat. It's not rocket science. It's OK if you are a little off on the measurements.

In my experience, a high % of the growers looking at your plant will be saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it"; and if I had a nickel for every time I heard the advice given, I'd be a lot closer to a comfortable retirement. Do you ever hear, "If your car still starts, forget about changing the oil" or "Why bother having the brakes fixed if you haven't had an accident yet?" You know best what the original root mass is like. If it's badly congested, it will affect the plant as long as it remains that way, but it's not a decision I can make ..... whether to go for the whole repot now, or wait until early summer next year. I suppose I would weigh the likelihood that I could get the plant through the winter in decent shape and use that as the issue on which the decision balances. If you're confident you can, then what harm in waiting? If you're concerned, then maybe best to don your gloves and git 'er done. I don't think you need to spray the roots with neem oil .... I've never done it, so can't share how the plant might or might not react. Any idea what the active ingredient was in the insecticide you were given to use on the soil's inhabitants? Keep us posted? More questions I might help with? Observations? Al

@Nil13 made reference to the Whitcomb 311 mix, which is an earlier historical attempt to create a more coarse potting soil for container plants. I think it is extremely helpful to read a document written by Carl Whitcomb that explains how he came on this formula by accident. Essentially what happened is he accidentally left nine test pots under a bench and everyone forgot they were there. They had successfully nearly killed all of their test plants by watering in a normal potting soil mix and the unwatered plants started to do very well. What I have started to realize is that any plant can do well in many different soil mixes, if you are able to carefully control the watering. This explains why so many people on this forum claim gritty mix is not as good for their succulents as their (fill in some random horrible soil with lots of small particles) mix. Inevitably those people are growing their plants indoors. They have enormous experience with their plant type and they know exactly when to water the plant. So that is the case of a very skilled gardener compensating for a very bad soil. What gritty mix does for me is let me grow succulents outside in very abusive weather conditions, without the plant dying. A plant can get a week of rain and it will still drain well. During Summer, gritty mix will tolerate a bit of overwatering, although you still really need to pay attention to not overwatering. Whether you make your 511 mix with perlite/peat, or with two parts Turface, or with lava and pumice, is probably in the big picture not going to be the deciding factor in whether your plants grow well or not. Success can be add with any of those mixes because the size of the particles allows the roots to breathe and prevents capillary action of water from bring the perched water table to the top of the pot and drowning the roots. Fine-tuning how you make 511 is a question of matching the plant type to the moisture retention of the soil and to the watering habit and climate exposure. Any 511 variant is going to do better than almost any commercial potting soil because of the larger particles used in the majority of the mix.