I thought I posted this on the gardenweb forum. Now it's houzz? Had to sign up for a new user name. Anyway soo - you can get the Naked Gardener Compost or Debco Premium Potting Mix from Masters (closing soon). Course Perlite is from The Perlite & Vermiculite Factory Myaree (much cheaper than anywhere else). Sand I got from a bulk landscape place (lawn mix) but you can get 10 or 20kg bags of builders sand at Bunnings. Zeochlor is in the pool section at Bunnings. Rock Dust I got from the manufacturer direct somewhere in Bibralake (called Natural PK) but I think but you can now get a similar product from Waldecks (in Myaree at least). Waldecks also sell bentonite clay. I still want to try the gritty mix but getting my hands on all the materials has proved very difficult when I tried last year. I found a Queensland company that makes course DE (for mopping up oil/chemicals) but they didn't have a distributor in Perth. Nobody I could find has pine bark in the right size - and even if they did I'd have to by a cement mixer and modify it with a fine wire to screen it. Honestly, if an agricultural company were to produce the gritty mix and sell it in bags I think they'd make bank - even considering how long it lasts.

I've never grown them in an orchid mix, or seen them grown in such, but that doesn't mean it won't work. They can easily be grown in either the gritty mix or the 5:1:1 mix. It's easy to overlook the fact that plants in containers may very well not prefer the same type of root medium in which they grow in situ. As long as you provide a medium that holds little or no perched water, you water/fertilize appropriately, and give the plant the light/temperature it prefers, you'll be fine. The key to providing a healthy root medium lies not so much in what materials the soil is made of; rather, in the size and uniformity of the particles that make up the medium. The potential for your plant to prosper is much greater in a soil that has a favorable structure and no organic fraction than it is in a soil with a significant organic fraction but with an unfavorable structure. Al

I use both mixes, for indoor and outdoor plants, and generally speaking, I use 5-1-1 for plants that need more water, as that's the recommendation from Al. However, I can't say I've noticed much difference between the 2 for how long plants go between watering. I don't think indoor or outdoor use makes much difference, although 5-1-1 might break down quicker, as mostly bark. However, you can combat that by using larger particle bark. I use propagating bark by Melcourt for gritty mix, but usually, either potting bark or their Sylvan Premium Pine Mini Mulch (think that's what it's called) for 5-1-1, as those are larger particle and seems to work better for that. I also use 5-1-1 to save money, for shorter lived plants, btw, as bark is still the cheapest of the ingredients here. I would probably use either for plants you mentioned, but might tend to 5-1-1 for fiddle leaf. I wouldn't worry about over-watering for either mix: you will be very hard-pressed to over-water anything in either, I've found. Evergreen plants, such as ficus, need re-potting in stages, as they're evergreen, so you can't bare-root them. Al describes the procedure in various places on here. Basically, you remove pie-shaped wedges of the potting soil, and fill those up with your chosen mix. I think Al said to remove about 1/3rd to 1/2 of total soil volume with each re-potting. Then next time, you remove the opposite wedges, so within 2-3 re-pottings, you will have them in fully in new mix. I've had good success with this method, for plants that were previously in normal soil, including ficus. At first, I was a bit worried about how the different types of soil would affect watering, so that the potting soil would stay far wetter, but if they do, it does not seem to harm the plants. Al says that it does not matter, as the extra water is drained out of the potting soil by the gritty mix or 5-1-1. You can also prune the roots in the wedges, or if you don't, you can use chop sticks or similar to get the mix in amongst the roots. As for time of re-potting, it's far more crucial for outdoor plants, than for indoor plants, advice is to re-pot after a growth spurt, I think. But I've re-potted indoor plants at all seasons, and not had any problems... Hope that helps - am no expert by far, either. But have found, since I've started using these mixes, it's hard to do anything much wrong - plants just thrive. Keeping up with watering is my biggest problem now.

Josh I was in a bit of a hurry last night and am looking back over this now. You helped me realize I'd overlooked that the pine barks in 5-1-1 and gritty mix are not the same; in one mix barks are screened and in the other they are not. But as I review the thread linked in my original post (above) container blueberry it looks like Al was suggesting something of a combination of Gritty and 5-1-1 for my climate "5:2:1 mix of PBFs:Turface:peat." Here in Utah it's cold and snowy (yet dry) in winter, and very hot in summer with little rain. Utah is dry, dry, dry.... well, maybe not as dry as California is right now. We have extreme temperatures and intense sun because of the elevation - I'm at 4600+ ft. Water retention is difficult in containers here. (Between our climate and the alkaline soil it seems crazy to take on blueberries, but the challenge is fun. Last year was the first year we allowed them to bear fruit and there were lots of berries, but tiny.) When you suggest for blueberries a 5-2-1 version of 5-1-1, you're talking about increasing the peat moss (not perlite) to 2 parts, right? What do you think about 5-2-1/PBF-Turface-Peat? In case it makes a difference, in place of Turface I have the coarse 100% DE from auto parts suppliers. Thanks for the time you've already taken to help me-- Kay