Hello all,

I have planted several plastic bin type containers using just that plain coir that comes in compressed bricks. I've read that the chips of this stuff are really good, but I've only seen the bricks in our area so I tried it. It seems like good "soil" and it is supposed to hold both moisture and air, but I think my plants might be suffocating. The pots drain well when watered but the "soil" seems to remain quite damp--although, never soggy--for a long time, even when it's been windy and you'd think the plants would need to drink it all up. For example, the leaves on one medium size bush in a 10 gallon bin are a nice green, but are textured kind of like seer sucker fabric rather than smooth. Is this from bad roots? I expected bad roots would cause the leaves to weep down or turn yellow or fall off or something, but I don't know what to make of this odd texture. Also, some of the leaves are getting a few red spots that I read somewhere are a sign of environmental stress. I was going to try to amend the soil and re-pot, but I don't know what to use. I'm up on a small balcony and weight is an issue, so I don't want to go with very heavy things like gravel. I could mix in some perlite, but would it all just float up and away when watered? Would bark work better? What kind? Or something else? What percentage of what should I mix with the coir to see if the plants would do better or do you think the problem is something else? Many thanks to all for any advice you can give me.