Beginner Gardening: Good Growing Practices - an Overview for Beginners, 1 by tapla

tapla wrote:
Scroll upthread to my post of Oct 29 for a picture of appropriate size pine bark. If you have trouble keeping the Begonia happy, it's almost a certainty it's not because you used MG fertilizer - unless perhaps you were using one of the 'bloom booster' formulas, which can be a problem. I use nothing but soluble synthetic fertilizers (like Miracle-Gro) in 3:1:2 ratios for everything I grow in containers - with very good results, as you can see.

I use sieves I made to screen things. Usually, I'm able to find bark for the 5:1:1 mix that doesn't need screening - like you see in the picture I mentioned. If you were going to use it in the gritty mix, it should be screened to a size between 1/8-3/8, with 1/8-1/4 being better. I'm lucky to be able to buy pre screened fir bark in 1/8-1/4 in 3 cu ft bags from an orchid supply house.

Al