Components of substrate separate

[fanaticactus]

Steve, I greatly appreciate all the effort you made to come up with this very thorough review of your testing of potting mixes. The simpler mixes certainly sound attractive, just because of the couple of ingredients needed, and apparently the soil-less substrates give excellent results and are, therefore, widely popular. I will try to conduct my own experiments of water retention to see if there is any appreciable difference between what you got as results and what my current mix yields. Right now, we've had quite a stretch of hot weather (for northern New England) but not much humidity. The cacti are really enjoying it. The greenhouse gets way too hot--even with a strong exhaust fan and a small oscillating one blowing on the collection--so I've taken them all outside in the fresh air, which I know is essential for their health. We haven't had much rain, so I let them stay outside during any light, passing showers we might get. But I take them into the GH if there is severe weather expected or several days of rain and clouds. The permanent winter-hardy gardens are doing great this summer, the best they've ever had. Your work is much more scientifically detailed than what I have time to do, so I find your reports very useful--and they have given me enough confidence to try to go absolutely soil-less (except, of course, on my jungle types). I do want to continue using coir for two reasons: I still have a lot of it, and I think it does help retain a useful amount of moisture without being soggy. I think my pumice and grit dry out too quickly. But that's something I'd be interested in testing.