Beginner Gardening: Soil by Tapla, 0 by tapla

tapla wrote:
Yes. As noted, I use the gritty mix for everything long term.

I gave a presentation to a large master gardeners group last night, mainly about bonsai, but because many of the plants I brought to use for illustrative purposes were tropicals (the deciduous stuff is dormant & most of the conifers are bronze/dead-looking in the winter and not impressive), the talk was interspersed with a LOT of information about how to apply bonsai techniques, or maybe 'practices' is a better word, to keep houseplants and other long-term plantings healthy by using a good soil and using maintenance techniques (full repotting with root pruning at regular intervals). Everyone was intrigued by the soil sample and that the plants were so perfectly healthy growing in what looks a lot like fine gravel.

They asked if I'd do the same presentation, only to the public this time, in June, at some sort of big shindig they have planned. It should be fun. Everyone paying very close attention to the presentation (except for 1 old lady about 95 years old who slept through the whole thing) ;o) but I saw 'the light' go on over and over again, as people started to understand that some of the things I was talking about, like heavy soils and PWTs, were affecting their growing. It was a really productive evening, as far as raising the awareness of a large group .... and it was fun. ;o)

You probably realize it's much more difficult to grow cacti and succulents in shallow containers, but note how shallow the two containers pictured are.

Al