Gosh I hope not Rina. The first time i was in Canada was in Toronto. Drove through from New York and there was a riot that broke out. By the stadium or sports arena..whatever you guys call it. I think there was a game going on (obviously) lol, but that's when i really learned how seriously some take football! I think it was in the 70's...or maybe the 60's? i don't remember anymore lol.

Figure the volume of all the pots, convert to cu ft. You'll get just under 3 cu ft of 5:1:1 ( for every 2 cu ft of PBFs + 4 gallons each of peat and perlite - or about 22 gallons. For every bag of Turface you buy (1-1/3 cu ft) & screen, you'll get just under 1 cu ft of screened Turface. Combine 1 cu ft of Turface with equal volumes of screened pine or fir bark + screened grit, you'll get about 2-3/4 cu ft of gritty mix. There are about 7-1/2 liquid gallons in a cu ft of material, so you'll get about 21 gallons. Since the grit has greater bulk density, you'll need more bags of grit vs Turface and fewer bags of bark at 2 cu ft/bag. Al

Yes I have been to two Tractor Supply Stores, one had never heard of it ( maybe as Gibson suggested that was because I mentioned gran I grit not chicken grit and threw him off asking for crushed granite for a soil component), the other one was out of stock and couldn't tell me if or when they would get more. I didn't think to inquire specifically about order some but saw people mentioning growing that for pine mulch and as it is listed on their website I plan on trying that. I really have spent hours searching these forum feeds trying to find alternate names people have listed or places to try to locate them as farming fields are just miles from me here so I never thought I would have this difficulty once I branched or from big brand lawn and garden stores( which is where I got the idea to meandered into the hydroponics store across Houston as suggested but to no avail- that's when I realized maybe I didn't know exactly what alternate names others might call it). Problem with these feeds is they hold so much great information but I just end up getting lost in the links within links within links and mostly find myself rereading the same information and posts/ or reading things people say is similar then hours reading arguments against the case like with floor dry, Diatomaceous earth, kitty litter, aquarium rocks ...I've tried to follow along even though most arguments are way over my head and came to the conclusion none of these are good substitutes for Als ingredients/ esp if I'll be leaving my finicky fiddle fig tree in the medium for 1-2 years... Wish some of the info was in one of the original posts by Al and not lost in the comments... Honestly I gave this all 2 wks break as it was frustrating me and taking so much of my time but obviously I'm back at it with a deadline of a few weeks left to repot my trees whose surface circling roots stare back at me in despair daily...

@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.