Don't worry, the 3/8 dowel will work just fine. No need to get another. The piles at 3, 6, and 9 o'clock above are all from different sources/packagers and represent excellent examples of what to look for. It could be used 'as is' for the 5:1:1 mix and/or screened for the gritty mix. The pile in the center is a dry 5:1:1 mix, and the fir bark at 12 is about perfect if you're thinking 'gritty mix'. Here's another picture of the 5:1:1 mix made from a bark product that's a little too coarse, but I really like it like that. The need to water more often means your soil doesn't have an inherent reservoir of perched water to limit root health. If your pots are small enough, you can water thoroughly at the sink & then tip the pots at a 45* angle to help rid the soil of excess water. That trick works especially in conjunction with a wick through a drain hole in the bottom at a side wall. You can also hold small 'just watered' plantings over the sink and move them down then sharply reverse directions to upward. The water in the pot will want to maintain its downward direction and will exit the pot - VERY effective. More about dealing with excess water retentiopn here (click me). Here's a picture that helps illustrate several ways you can deal with excess water retention. I think they're pretty much self-explanatory. I wouldn't feel as though it's imperative that you stick to a crash program that culminates in having everything you need to make the soil(s) in the very immediate future. You risk letting frustration sour you on what should prove to be a significant jump ahead in your container growing abilities, so just keep learning and watching for an appropriate source for pine bark. BTW - where do you live? You might consider adding your zone and a large city near you (like my 'tapla mid-MI z5b-6a'). It will make it much easier for others to tailor advice that includes geographical considerations. Questions? Al

Darn, I thought the pot was just the right size. My plan today was to do a full repot with the new mix. I'm very nervous but at this rate, don't want to risk waiting until next season to do anything and watch all these beautiful leaves turn black and fall off. I've never done anything like this before, so please let me know based on my plan if I should change anything- my plan was to go get materials today. Use black gold potting soil I showed you yesterday Use this perlite soil to add in Use this reptibark for the bark portion. Buy this sieve to separate any fine dust or particles that could get into the mix and cause it to be too compacted. My plan was to get ingredients today and then this evening work on combining them. Once I know my mixture is good, do the repot tomorrow morning/afternoon as I don't want to do anything late into the day since I figure that could cause more stress. I planned on having my husband help me take him out of the pot and to flush out all the current soil outside with a garden hose (my one reserve to this is the water could be too cold?) once everythjng is cleared, bring him inside and place him into a bathtub with lukewarm water (id prep it first to avoid dry roots) and then inspect to see if I need to snip any rotting roots away meanwhile I will have my husband wash out his plot completely so the root rot is not in there anymore. (But if you think I need a new pot will just do that) fill pot up with some of the mixture, place root ball in, fill remaining with mixture. Perhaps give the pot a little toss/shake to ensure that roots are not crushed and that the mixture makes its way evenly through the system. move him to a more sunny area, at least for the time being... There really aren't more places in our house that get more light than this one, it does get a lot brighter after about 12 o clock in here and in the evening the sun comes in a lot stronger (but not directly on his leaves which is nice) so I might move him back here to see if it works okay with a better soil/root system. Thoughts? Are the ingredients for my mix okay? Anything I should know when repotting? I don't want to hurt him further

Hey guys, first of all, thanks to everyone that's helping. I've learned so much in the past two days. Specially Dave and Al...thank you teachers! :) So sorry about in the instrusion, I'm another one with fiddle leaf problems. I think I was sold a sick FLF...the guys just told me that it was in direct light all day long, so I thought the brown spots were justified. Until I got home and realized the soil was really compact...really....compact and soggy...and loads of rocks on top, which probably wouldn't help. So what I've did pretty fast, I went into despair...I've tried to repot it...and..of course I the roots just broke in half, and they were almost black and quite smelly... I didn't have anything around other than regular soil with perlite, so I just moved the lyrata and the now shorter roots too a new dry vase with some brick pieces at the bottom and that soil...the soil it's very loose and didn't compressed whatsoever. Didn't watered since, two days now. So after reading all of your kind info, Tomorrow I'm going too: 1. Clean the remaining roots as well as I can without damaging it more.. 2 .Repot, with 5:1:1 mix...Pine bark, Turf (should I?), Perlite; and some brick pieces in the bottom. 3. Water the lyrata once like flushing, right? And then again.. 4. The bottom leaves are very very rigid almost like they are about to break, I've read one Al's comment about "the end of life" process of these leaves...Should I cut the last leave and put the trunk deeper so it forms new healthy roots? (if this makes any sense at all) 5. Pruning, I was thinking about cutting the top (last picture), but as the bottom leaves are so stiff, maybe they aren't able to produce that much "food" and I should keep the top one for now? (I'm I thinking stupid??) 6. The only I had to cover the pot was sawdust, with which I have been lucky in protecting my plants from pests and mould. Again...in a despair act..should I maintain this? Can you help me please?? I'm based in Sintra,Portugal; very warm and humid location, actually humidity is a problem around here. Any advice is most welcome! thanks!

Some things to consider: * I don't know what USDA zone you're in, but your plant is right next to the radiator. As the radiator warms the room air, the relative humidity of the newly warmed air drops precipitously, so much so that the air becomes drier than the air in the Sahara Desert ...... and this holds true even if you have a humidifier in the room. So that's a problem. * Your plant is in a cache pot. If you're not emptying the cache pot every time you water, your plant is sitting in the salt-laden effluent (waste water) that exits the drain hole. This is a problem on several fronts. It causes soil saturation that leads to drought stress; it causes an increase in dissolved solids (salts) that makes water uptake and movement throughout the plant difficult; it raises media pH; and it compounds the low relative humidity issue in the immediate vicinity of the radiator. At a minimum, your plant's pot should sit above any effluent collecting in the cache pot. * Dave asked, "How often and how much are you watering? How are you insuring its time to water?" The question is so important it's worthy of repeating, so I'll ask that you answer, too; and, I suggest you read about using a "tell" to "tell" you when it's time to water. More on that below. * The symptoms aren't consistent with what minor stress might be associated with a move. Generally, leaf loss due to a new home is related only to the leaf loss that might occur as a result of diminished photo load (light intensity, or in some cases - duration of exposure), though a move during cold weather can be immediately damaging such that leaf loss might occur within 1-2 weeks. Low temps and especially sudden exposure to cold drafts often causes leaf loss within a week or two, but usually leaves are still green when they fall - unless they showed necrotic areas before exposure to chill. This should be helpful (click link). Using a 'tell' Over-watering saps vitality and is one of the most common plant assassins, so learning to avoid it is worth the small effort. Plants make and store their own energy source – photosynthate - (sugar/glucose). Functioning roots need energy to drive their metabolic processes, and in order to get it, they use oxygen to burn (oxidize) their food. From this, we can see that terrestrial plants need air (oxygen) in the soil to drive root function. Many off-the-shelf soils hold too much water and not enough air to support good root health, which is a prerequisite to a healthy plant. Watering in small sips leads to a build-up of dissolved solids (salts) in the soil, which limits a plant's ability to absorb water – so watering in sips simply moves us to the other horn of a dilemma. It creates another problem that requires resolution. Better, would be to simply adopt a soil that drains well enough to allow watering to beyond the saturation point, so we're flushing the soil of accumulating dissolved solids whenever we water; this, w/o the plant being forced to pay a tax in the form of reduced vitality, due to prolong periods of soil saturation. Sometimes, though, that's not a course we can immediately steer, which makes controlling how often we water a very important factor. In many cases, we can judge whether or not a planting needs watering by hefting the pot. This is especially true if the pot is made from light material, like plastic, but doesn't work (as) well when the pot is made from heavier material, like clay, or when the size/weight of the pot precludes grabbing it with one hand to judge its weight and gauge the need for water. Fingers stuck an inch or two into the soil work ok for shallow pots, but not for deep pots. Deep pots might have 3 or more inches of soil that feels totally dry, while the lower several inches of the soil is 100% saturated. Obviously, the lack of oxygen in the root zone situation can wreak havoc with root health and cause the loss of a very notable measure of your plant's potential. Inexpensive watering meters don't even measure moisture levels, they measure electrical conductivity. Clean the tip and insert it into a cup of distilled water and witness the fact it reads 'DRY'. One of the most reliable methods of checking a planting's need for water is using a 'tell'. You can use a bamboo skewer in a pinch, but a wooden dowel rod of about 5/16” (75-85mm) would work better. They usually come 48” (120cm) long and can usually be cut in half and serve as a pair. Sharpen all 4 ends in a pencil sharpener and slightly blunt the tip so it's about the diameter of the head on a straight pin. Push the wooden tell deep into the soil. Don't worry, it won't harm the root system. If the plant is quite root-bound, you might need to try several places until you find one where you can push it all the way to the pot's bottom. Leave it a few seconds, then withdraw it and inspect the tip for moisture. For most plantings, withhold water until the tell comes out dry or nearly so. If you see signs of wilting, adjust the interval between waterings so drought stress isn't a recurring issue. Al