Searching the archives + What Do You Think Of Coconut Coir?
Mary Sue Ittner (Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:40:43 PDT)

Dear Josh,

David Pilling created a nice feature on the Pacific Bulb Society web
pages where you can search previous messages on this list by Google.
It wasn't working very well recently, but he wrote them and it seems
to be much better again. Unfortunately they throw in a few ads for
good measure, but still you can get a list of what people have said
in the past when we discussed things like potting mixes and using
coir. There are some threads that come up from time to time and it's
always a good place to look first when you have a question. Much
wisdom has been shared on this list since 2002.
<http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php>

As I recall there were some negative responses and some positive ones
about using coir. On a recent trip to South Africa, I helped Rod and
Rachel Saunders repot some Scadoxus to sell and they were growing
them in pure coir, nothing else. When I asked about this, remembering
that people had said they had lost things using coir, Rod told me
that you needed to wash it many times before using it to be sure that
you have removed the salt from it. But then they found it worked
quite well. It reminded me that I once heard a lecture on
insectivorous plants by a man who had written a great book about
growing them and he lost everything using coir, but I don't know if
he washed it first.

Mary Sue