I'm curious, tropic, do you do any Gritty Mix container gardening? Or even any container gardening period? There's no rain here from October to April, and then it rains (hard) every day. I think standard potting soils would be a problem, and I have only a balcony.

There is a Hawaii Gardening forum that gets some general tropical questions, but it's pretty quiet, so you might not get as many answers as in a busier forum.

It rains almost every day here, sometimes very hard--up to 10" in a day. 150" per year average.

We use a mixture of aged mulch and cinder in our pots. Fertilizer gets washed out quickly--we use pond plant tablets that dissolve slowly.

We have the same distinct wet and dry seasons here. But the bulk of my gardening is in the ground, or in trees for my epiphytes and ponds for my water plants. Much depends on which plants you grow but many tropicals come from similar climates to yours so deal well with deluges as well as the drying out periods. If you do a bit of research on the natural conditions for any plant you should be able to set it up so that it doesn't have any problems. For the few plants I have in pots I generally mix what feels right for that plant.

There is always growjngontheedge.net Its about growing the tropical look...but so many contributors travel to tropical countries,they have a good idea of what works. Especially to Mexico.

Californian's also grow much of what grows in PV. Especially in soucal,minus the ultratropical. I notice I see many common tropicals here are grown also everywhere in the tropics as I guess,being easy to get.

I'll check it out. I'm having some trouble finding ingredients for the Gritty Mix. Turface is the problem for me. I may try hydroton if I can find it small enough. Perhaps it isn't ideal, but if I increase both the bark & the hydroton I might get something acceptable. I have friends bringing me back some Dyna-Gro from Arizona. Organic fertiliser is difficult to find here. I want it for the passionfruit seeds once they sprout. We'll see. :)