Hi Robin, My email is anitaroselle@gmail.com. I already have turkey grit and fine chicken grit. Would I mix it with pro mix and some sand. I am unsure of potting mixes for bulbs and bulb seed. Should I add some compost? Clay beads are a clay material that is somehow formed into roundish shapes and fired. With orchids it makes a mix lighter and more open at the same time holding moisture and releasing it slowly , they come in several sizes. I use lava rock a lot with my orchids, wonder if pumice is sold here on the east coast. I don't throw out the very fine dust from pounding up the lava into the size I want, I don't have much of that though. I appreciate anything that will help me get up to speed with bulbs and bulb seed faster, I feel like a baby in the woods, everyone seems to know all these things. I look forward to the catalog, I love old ones they usually have lots of information in them. I know of Nancy Goodwin but I have never been down to where she is, I am located about 4 hours from there. The soil is somewhat different here in the mountains than it is down east. I would love to have a garden half as lovely as hers. I was about to say that I do not have any conifers but I have a sizeable Cryptomeria japonica that they would look nice under. I will try that when they are a little bigger, I need to start seed every year so I create a supply. Where is the best place besides seed exchanges to get seed, I used to belong to NARGS but have let it go. Thank you a lot, Anita R. On Tue, Aug 22, 2017 at 1:38 PM, Hansen Nursery <robin@hansennursery.com> wrote: > Plastic pots might be better to start unless you plunge clay pots in damp > builders' sand. Pumice is thrown out by volcanoes here in the west so it's > a common potting ingredient mixed with other ingredients such as fine or > coarse fir or pine bark and other materials. Turkey grit would work as a > substitute as most cyclamen are not hugely pH sensitive. You can get it in > 50-lb bags at your local animal feed dealer or farm supplier. I don't know > what clay beads are as I've not seen them. As the cyclamen tubers get > another year's growth you could put them under conifers in your garden. > You > won't necessarily need to amend your soil to put cyclamen in the ground. > Google Nancy Goodwin and you'll see she has tons of cyclamen in her garden. > > > If you'll send your private email to me at the address below, I'll send an > old catalog that has tons of information about where to put them and how to > grow. I don't generally advertise the catalog on the PBS site as most > members are aware of it. There are also some books and other information > you can find. If you can grow orchids, you can grow cyclamen!!! > > Robin Hansen > robin@hansennursery.com > > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net > http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/… > _______________________________________________ pbs mailing list pbs@lists.pacificbulbsociety.net http://lists.pacificbulbsociety.net/cgi-bin/…