It'd also be nice to be able to introduce ANYthing more alive in the soil-less potting mixtures of container plants today. I've been a larger fan of orchids lately for indoors ...as mostly epiphytes I feel less radical sadness about growing them indoors than some of the other plants I've got. And there are plants that I would not ever try to grow indoors, strictly because my sense is that they Must be in the ground outdoors, needing organic matter and lively beings in the soil with them to grow happily.

95% of the world's plants could benefit from Mycorrhizal inoculants. There are a few companies that produce them, but I have found that only one of them will give you an exact spore count so that you know what you're getting is viable. www.planthealthcare.com

Could a lack of mycorrhizal associations be what is causing my otherwise spoiled Aloysia triphylla shrubs to whither and succumb to disease in their pots while humble farmers grow thousands of them all around Lima? -- granted mine are in outdoor pots, but perhaps they're craving "organic matter and lively beings in the soil with them to grow happily" (to quote whitejade). And is Lemon Verbena the right name for A. triphylla?

I am becoming increasingly jealous of rural Lima farmers...