Question the First: What role does the bark play in Al's Mix? I'm still kind of confused on that topic. It's a concern because I only have Turface and Perlite right now and the bark is kind of annoying to find in any decent quantity.

Question the Second: So I have a spider plant that was previously not doing too well. Since putting it into Al's Mix and giving it a "brush cut" to remove the damaged leaves and track any more browning, it seems to be well on the way to recovery. However, I wasn't sure and so removed one f it's babies, which seemed big enough to me and place the bottom bit in water. Nothing happened. What did I do wrong? The base was about 1 cm, 1 1/2 cm in diameter or so.

Eventually I said to Hell with it, pulled it out of the water and put it on the top of a pot with turface in it like I've heard other people do to get it to root. The leaves eventually started withering away. I was down to like, two green leaves last night before I threw the poor thing away.

It's hard to say what happened to the spider baby, but we can probably be sure that something fungal took it. They root very easily, but if the mother plant had just started into a recovery phase, the plantlet may have had very little in the way of the energy reserves required to push new roots. They root easily in water, but potting them directly in a sterile, well-aerated medium (like screened Turface) is a better choice, so perhaps after the mother plant has rebuilt energy reserves, or even just after changing from water to the solid medium, you'll be able to make another try. ;o)

Good luck!!

Al

Here's hoping for the next time *crosses fingers*

Al

I put about a pinch into about a litre in my watering can. Been doing it that way for about two, two and a half months now and no plant complaints yet. Although if you have anything else to say on the subject I'd certainly love to hear it.

Did you add dolomitic (garden) lime or gypsum to the soil?

I ask because the MG fertilizer has no Ca or Mg in it, and you need to be sure your plants are getting those very important nutrients in order that they might grow to their potential.

Al

No I haven't been adding that... drat.

Al

I was wondering if you'd be back to ask about the nutritional aspects. I mused that if you came back, you were pretty committed to learning more about plants, and if you didn't, you either thought I was full of beans or didn't really care all that much. I'm glad you came back. ;o)

Good luck. Let me know if you think I can help further.

Al