Seven months late, but thanks, @the_yard_guy! ;-) Gritty mix is wonderful. Thanks to Al and his generous sharing of this mix and 5:1:1, I have become a better gardener overall. It's not just about having things in these particular mixes -- it's that even in the worst of soils, I understand plants a little better. Even when my brain is YELLING that something needs to be watered and that it's drying up --- my experience with these two mixes and how little water plants actually can live off of made me a much better plant mother! This Pachira was one of the pots shown in the original "migration" to gritty mix. It's not enormous but it's never had a single issue or problem since, and it grows ever so steadily and healthily. I could bet that I'd have killed it about ~~~ 10 months ago if I hadn't switched to gritty mix. :) All it gets is some tap water whenever I remember, and a dose of Foliage Pro if and when I feel like it, which is usually no more than once a month. This gorgeous plant really needs for nothing more, apparently. These days, I have quite a few things in 5:1:1 and almost all of my succulents that I still have are in gritty mix. Not having any more pebbles or bark on hand anymore (which must be replenished!), I've also potted in ProMix HP for a lot of my newer plants. But how I treat plant has changed drastically since learning more about roots and what they need, and what they usually go through to survive because of my torture, haha. Especially over the last half year, there were many times I had to leave town for an extended amount of time, and it always intrigued me to see which stayed alive for 10 days without a drop of water -- and which, despite having been soaked before leaving, decided to sulk and/or die. Due to these absences, I gave a bunch of my plants away and kept mostly succulents and a few houseplants only, but it was a learning experience overall. Anyway - -just wanted to give Al yet another kudos, thanks and a big high five for all the information he shares! Grace

@bay: I guess you got your answers from Al. I usually try to stick to same size pot when I do partial repot. Sometimes I may go a bit up if I want it to grow bigger/fatten up a bit faster. A lot of my plants are in small pots. I have two large Ficus that are in 7 gallon containers and that is the largest container I have for long term plants. I will be downsizing those. 7 gallons of gritty mix is heavy.

Andersons - I think it's important to understand that you can't duplicate a riparian (streamside) environment in a container. The link to Exotic Rainforest keeps popping up, but I think you'll find that Steve Lucas and I were pretty much exactly on the same page. Whenever it came to discussions about soils, you'll find Steve's offerings peppered with comments like these: "In a variety of links on this site Al offers very good porous soil mixes that can encourage an aroid to live a long time and grow to a larger size as well as remain healthy. The correct mix and proper watering are far more important than the size of the pot ........ Al, can I suggest you post a link to some of your articles on soil? Steve Corresponding Secretary, The International Aroid Society" "Again, I have to say I fully agree with Al's writings. Pot size is not nearly as important as soil mixtures and proper water (along with adequate light) are the most important factors to successful growth. Like many things in house plant growth, pot size is not well understood nor well explained to many growers." "I have spent a great deal of time studying this subject just as Al has, especially with botanists such as Dr. Tom Croat at the Missouri Botanical Garden and many others. I am also well aware that many people on this and other forums prefer that discussions not be based on science since this is a place where the average grower asks questions. I cannot help but believe many of those people want really good answers to their questions so again my thanks to Al." "Whatever anyone chooses to do is their business. Any grower is entitled to do anything they choose to do but if my email is any indication there are tons of folks out there that want to know how to grow plants as they grow in nature. We receive about 1/2 million hits to our website every year from all over the world and most of them are seeking scientific answers just as Al provides." "I just don't know how to explain things without explaining enough so a grower understands both the concept and the background provided by science. You can find some very good discussions on this forum about soil so if this is useless, please try to find a few of them now, mostly written by Al Tapla." "Just a word of thanks for the information [Al]. I have agreed fully with Al's information for many years ..... Thanks again! Steve Lucas www.ExoticRainforest.com" "Al, that is one of the finest growing statements I have ever read! I try to explain this all the time but you have made the statement concisely and quite clearly! Where do people come up with the idea plants "like" to be in such conditions? Thanks! Steve" There are many more .... and I used to email back & forth with Steve from time to time when he had questions or comments about soils. I wish he was still around so he could have offered input on some of the recent soil threads. Steve was always well thought of, and I always appreciated his support. Al

Matt, I assume Upland is a bit warmer and drier than Glendale. I would guess that sun overheats black nursery pots the same. I have potted a bunch of Citrus. About half of them will stay in pots and the rest will be added to the old orange grove behind my house. Several have gone to friends. I currently have 46 citrus in pots. I'm mostly learning from things that did not work out well. It's too early to tell what works well over many years in this climate. For the dry inland areas of SoCal I would just use Armstrong Cactus & Citrus mix IF that citrus will be repotted in a couple years or will go in the ground,. I would use some of Al's wicks, particularly if the pot isn't terracotta. The actual "Al's Gritty Mix" worked better in the extended rain that happens occaisionally in SoCal. Typical SoCal "winter", we might have rain for 3 days straight and then a week later it is 80 degrees and dry. The problems happened when the days got long, with temps near 100 and dry. The needed LOTS of watering on hot days. On the few sizzling days that were dry, I came home mid day and watered those in addition to every morning and every evening. I started collecting citrus two years ago potting some permanently and some to plant after the grove is ready for them. I read lots of info on water flow in containers, most of it from Al and his patient answering of questions. The guy is a genius and a saint. I tracked down Laguna Hills Nursery that had helped me so much 30 years ago. His soils are 1:1 Pumice & Peat and 6:3:1 Pumice, Peat, Sand. What he calls sand is coarser than the sand you find at the local BORG. I ended up doing an entire range of potting techniques, and documented each in order to see how they worked. For citrus going into pots that will stay in pots semi-permanently, I have settled on a mix. I probably won't know how well it works until it has gone a few more years. I'm using a mix of 2:1:1 of Turface, Armstrong Fine Orchid Bark, and a third component. The third component is fine gravel at the bottom of the pot but is gradually replaced by pumice at the top for more water retention at the top. In the big pots I'm doing I am blending components 4-7 times for one container so the change is very gradual. Pay attention to Al's advice on not trying to use all gravel at the bottom followed by a potting mix above. I remove the loose nursery organic mix and loosen the roots but I don't bare root it as I was having too much shock, at least in hot weather. I'm gradually adding mix and using the hose with a water breaker on it to loosen the roots and blur the nursery mix into the semi-gritty planting mix. I ended up getting tired of screening Turface AVP. I did some testing on Turface Pro League and found the particle size is slightly smaller than Al suggests. It has no fines that fall through insect screen. I did testing to see if it had any perched water table as Al warned against. The particle size, which seems to mostly be from 1/12" to 1/8", will perch less than 1/4" of water. That becomes zero in Terracotta but plastic and sealed concrete get Al's wicks to remove that. I would have had to screen one ton of Turface AVP to get the 1000 pounds of Turface that I'm using. After testing AVP and Pro League, I bought a pallet of Pro League. This is clearly not Al's Gritty Mix but it is gritty-ish. There is way too little fines to plug up the gaps in the large particles and the very small perched water table is dealt with. I have no doubt Al's Gritty is a better choice in most of the country.