Not sure of the screen size I use. Screening is important. I had been not as diligent about doing so a few years back and when I lifted the plants to repot.
I could see how all of the fine particles had filtered down to the bottom of pot.
This is what Talpa had mentioned.
I find with my products it is the Turface that I have to be particularly watchful of.
Rick

I had the same issue with Napa Floor Dry despite sifting.

I'm using something similar to the gritty mix but with 1 part commercial succulent mix, horticultural charcoal, chicken grit, pumice & some coarse sand thrown in for good measure.

It's very friable & so far, all of my re-potted plants seem to really like it. Napa floor dry turned me off, so I just tweaked the ingredients a bit =)

A well made gritty mix embodies the concept that media that hold almost all their moisture inside of soil particles and almost none between particles are easier to grow in and can offer plants greater opportunity to grow nearer their genetic potential, so neglecting to consider the importance of appropriate particle size limits the potential upside.

Equal volumes of only 3 ingredients seems so simple enough to invite tweaking, but a lot of thought and science supports the concept the gritty mix is based on. I think growers should tweak it all they want, but I also think it's easy to lose sight of the concept that provides most of the soil's advantages and allows the grower to sidestep limitations inherent in almost all commercially prepared media - even those hyped as appropriate for plants intolerant of wet feet.

I'm glad you're happy with your experimentations. It's uplifting to come across growers who openly wear their enthusiasm.

Al

I also got a ridiculously huge bag of turface from amazon. After going through the whole bag (sifting took forEVER) I substituted pumice instead and that works just as well. It's pricey but I have less than a hundred pots and most of them are tiny (mostly haworthias and slow-growing cactus).

Other than coleus, a few mesembs and a giant pot of night-blooming jasmine, everyone else thrives in various versions of the gritty mix, tweaking just the tree bark to conform to how often I want to water anything which is my personal determining factor.

Here's the odd, unrelated bit: peat moss becomes hydrophobic when it dries completely, right? I had this happen to a pot of crassula that I forgot to repot. When peat moss desiccates, it takes hours of soaking to revivify it. So if you just pour water on it, its actually fantastic for keeping a plant from getting over-watered! I am betting, though, that this stuff will break down and fail faster. I am also betting this will not work indoors in the winter because the peat will not dry out fast enough to keep succulent roots from choking. But I'm keen to see.

Pagan