In my estimation, the only case to be made for reusing container soils is one of economics, and you'll never find me argue against making that decision. If you can't afford, you can't afford it. That said and setting economics aside, you might decide to reuse soil for reasons other than economical. Perhaps the effort involved with acquiring (or making your own) soil is something you might not wish to go through or be bothered with. In any case, it would be difficult to show that soils in a more advanced state of structural collapse can somehow be preferred to a soil that can be counted on to maintain its structure for the entire growth cycle. So, if the economic aspect is set aside, at some point you must decide that "my used soil is good enough" and that you're willing to accept whatever the results of that decision are. All soils are not created equal. The soils I grow in are usually pine bark based & collapse structurally at a much slower rate that peat based soils, yet I usually choose to turn them into the garden or give them over to a compost pile where they serve a better purpose than as a container soil after a year of service. Some plantings (like woody materials and some perennials) do pretty well the second year in the same bark-based soil, and with careful watering, I'm usually able to get them through a third year w/o root issues. Watering habits are an extremely important part of container gardening. Well structured soils that drain well are much more forgiving and certainly favor success on the part of the more inexperienced gardeners. As soils age, water retention increases and growing becomes increasingly difficult. If your (anyone's) excellence in watering skills allows you to grow in an aging medium, or if your decision that "good enough" is good enough for you, then it's (your decision) is good enough for me, too. The phrases "it works for me" or "I've done it this way for years w/o problems" is often offered up as good reason to continue the status quo, but there's not much substance there. I'm being called away now, but I'll leave with something I offered in reply on a recent thread: "... First, plants really aren't particular about what soil is made of. As long as you're willing to stand over your plant & water every 10 minutes, you can grow most plants perfectly well in a bucket of marbles. Mix a little of the proper fertilizers in the water & you're good to go. The plant has all it needs - water, nutrients, air in the root zone, and something to hold it in place. So, if we can grow in marbles, how can a soil fail? Our growing skills fail us more often than our soils fail. We often lack the experience or knowledge to recognize the shortcomings of our soils and to adjust for them. The lower our experience/knowledge levels are, the more nearly perfect should be the soils we grow in, but this is a catch 22 situation because hidden in the inexperience is the inability to even recognize differences between good and bad soil(s). Container soils fail when their structure fails. When we select soils with components that break down quickly or that are so small they find their way into and clog macro-pores, we begin our growing attempts under a handicap. I see anecdotes about reusing soils, even recommendations to do it all over these forums. I don't argue with the practice, but I (very) rarely do it, even when growing flowery annuals, meant only for a single season. Soils don't break down at an even rate. If you assign a soil a life of two years and imagine that the soil goes from perfect to unusable in that time, it's likely it would be fine for the first year, lose about 25% of its suitability in the first half of the second year, and lose the other 75% in the last half of the second year. This is an approximation & is only meant to illustrate the exponential rate at which soils collapse. Soils that are suitable for only a growing season show a similar rate of decline, but at an accelerated rate. When a used soil is mixed with fresh soil after a growing season, the old soil particles are in or about to begin a period of accelerated decay. I choose to turn them into the garden or they find their way to a compost pile. Unless the reasons are economical, I find it difficult to imagine why anyone would add garden soils to container soils. It destroys aeration and usually causes soils to retain too much water for too long. Sand (unless approaching the size of BB's), has the same effect. I don't use compost in soils because of the negative effect on aeration/drainage. The small amount of micro-nutrients provided by compost can be more efficiently added, organically or inorganically, via other vehicles. To boil this all down, a container soil fails when the inverse relationship between aeration/drainage goes awry. When aeration is reduced, soggy soil is the result, and trouble is in the making." Al

Yes Sunflowers take a lot of water and nutrients out of the ground and they could be robbing your impatients or it could be where you have them planted. I'm curious--Just where do you have them planted? Sunflowers require full sun and Impatiens full shade or at least very little direct sunlight. With this hot summer--at least it is most places--they would be struggling to just survive in the sun. Maybe the year they did so well it was cooler with a lot of overcast days.

Jorge, I was mistaken. the Traveler commission rates on AirBnb are 6 - 12%, depending on the rent. The higher the rent, the lower the commission. I don't know what the break off points are, though. The owner pays 3%. So AirBnb is getting 9 - 15%, which is very hefty. Consider the taxes the owner is paying, the rent the traveler is paying, esp. on a vacation rental/resort area where rents are high, mortgages, repairs and maintenance..it's absurd. There's a lot of upheaval right now in that industry because these sites are really gouging homeowners and travelers. In addition, these rental sites are getting income from THOUSANDS, even hundreds of thousands of properties, while travelers are making ONE trip and homeowners are renting ONE property. from which they make their livelihoods. It is pure greed on the part of the rental sites. I do think that commission and PPB model will collapse at some point. In addtion, as an owner, one thing about the commission/PPB sites is that, when you get an inquiry, they practically have to book the property before you can have any meaningful vetting conversation (for both sides). These sites have software that prevents - quite strenuously - any ability to give the inquirer a phone # to call (and vice versa), an email address, etc., and the reason is they don't want you referring the traveler to another site where you also advertise your property but where the traveler wouldn't have to pay the commission, which homeowners actually want to do for their guests. My feeling is, if you have to disallow free communication, cause people to try to write in code (and even then, it fails) in order to keep customers from finding your competition, there is something wrong with your model.

I'm still in progress, so I'm sure there will be more... but here's my list so far: Kohler Stages Sink 45 (I actually found the sink before I found GW, but in the process of researching the sink I found this forum, and haven't looked back) and my first post was to ask about whether to get the 45 or 33. Same with the Karbon faucet. Have it, but not installed yet. Instant Hot Water - have it, not installed yet... should there be an abbreviation for that? HINIY? An informed choice when getting the Wolf Dual Fuel. Picking 2700 for the LED lights. Just the other day learned what the HUSH was and asked the installer if they were planning to use it. I think I read about those outlets with the integrated USB port here and nearly stumped the electrician with that, but he found them and is excited to put one in. And just countless amounts of great information to help me define what I really want and what is important to me.