Thanks for the kind words. The best way to decrease the amount of medium it takes to fill a pot; and, to limit the volume of excess/ perched water a planting can hold is by using ballast. Note (fig D) how much less excess water a planting can hold when using an overturned pot as ballast. The figure on the right below illustrates how you can use brick or hollow plastic blocks as ballast. If you were to turn the bricks on edge and add 2 more, you would almost entirely eliminate this planting's ability to hold excess/ perched water. Make note though, that there must be at least 1 continuous/ unbroken soil column from the top of the soil column to the pot bottom. If the bricks were turned 90* and 2 more added such that the bricks or other material filled the pot bottom so that there was a 2"x2" gap between the bricks to provide the unbroken soil column I mentioned, the only grow medium in the entire planting capable of holding perched water would be the medium in the 2 x 2 space between the bricks. Al

Getting about 1 or 2 parts an evening done. Darn rain will not stop around here. Anyway, I keep thinking there must be some way to 'bond' the sand from Oscar's sandbox. Some of these gaps are no bigger than an 1/8" of an inch. Force the sand into the openings and then pour something liquid (maybe wood glue that is really watered down?) into the sand and hope it seeps? If Marlene gives me the go-ahead, I just might be willing to post a picture. All I can tell you is that as was the deck, this is a bigger project than I anticipated but one hell of a lot of fun! Calamity, I thought about concrete or plaster-of-paris, but I think the freeze-thaw cycles will turn either into dust in just a few months, and I don't know how I could clean them off the already sealed pieces. Oh, meant to include this is the last post - anyone ever work with decomposed granite?

Thx yes was going look around the control valve next. Looks to me that the tile has not been routinely maintained (sealed). So some aging and cracking in grout may have added to the problem. Been in the house two years with no visible issues with daily use, it looked perfect (e.g. no staining in bottom grout until suddenly now). This disscussion really makes me wonder about the way tubs are sealed to walls. A Silicon seal acting like a ~1/4" water dike trapping and holding water makes no sense. Seems to me that there should be a 1/2" gap under the wall backboard with current recommended water barrier behind extended 1/4" further overlapping the tub flange. And their should be engineered a flexible polymer strip to be inserted in the gap to seal between the tub ledge and the tile. It should have antimicrobials in it and be treated annually with an application of antimicrobial treatment. The invention could be a firm microbubble nondegradable polymer. And it should have a GoreTex film like property, where free water can't get across it, very little moisture is held so it dries quickly, and moisture settling behind the bottom tile can excape as water vapor. Slight permeability to the flexible material and a fused backing of the Goretex oriented towards the flange wall could accomplish this. It could have a thin flap on the back topside so it is installed along with the bottom tile and act as the standard 1/8" spacer below the bottom tile. Being flexible and supported from the back edge it could flex downward if the tub ledge moves downward when weight loaded, still helping block water entry. If the tub settles a little permanently, the permeable membrane would still help block transport water out of the gap. A spongy expandable sealed bubble like strip material would allow the most water blockage with flexing and also be best at preventing any air gap developing. Just an idea ... on my wish list.

@Christopher CNC For an indoor plant I like peat a lot and I can control the watering. Like you, I do not like to water plants. I like a well-draining soil that retains a lot of moisture. For an outdoor plant that is outside of its ideal environment, I think the plant dictates the soil. There are succulents that will do well in a well-drained peat soil, and there are succulents that would get root rot quickly in that soil. So the issue with putting rocks below a soil layer is that you raise the perched water table. If your perched water table was going to be six inches, then the new perched water table will be the height of the rock layer plus six inches. That's not inherently a bad thing, as long as you know where your roots are going to grow, and you do not want to rob deep rooting plants of well aerated soil. With a gritty mix you have a pretty minimal perched water table. If I were buying the soil from a garden center, then I agree who cares about a little more cost. But gritty mix is such a pain for me to make. I have to filter out the bark. I have to filter out the Turface. It takes way too much time, and I do not enjoy it.