As beginners, we all focus on watering - and the problems we have in doing so properly - but nobody ever switches the focus to air, which is actually more important.
It's sort-of an iterative process, but if you start by figuring out how to keep the root system airy, then you have to figure out how to get the plant sufficient water. If what you've done requires too much labor, you then have to make the root zone retain more water without sacrificing airiness.
Particle packing also plays a role (I have a piece about that on my Free Info page, too). I don't know about the rest of you, but I learned that adding small perlite particles was supposed to make the mix more open. In reality, mixing particle sizes actually reduces that.
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