Mcspeed

You pose good questions, with the mame you will need some smaller soils, probably not much less than the 1/8" area, and you can always top dress them with smaller, but those will in fill the small spaces left, after a while. The thing with Mame is depending on your climate, you may not even have them in the intended pots untill close to time for showing them, so it's not always an issue. For show purposes, it will only be maybe every 3-4 years, otherwise you risk the tree by continuosly reducing the roots to keep it in a pot.

As to large, I have seen some use some pretty big stuff, but in general the 1/4 - 3/8 stuff is pretty good all around for the large trees and pots, a little smaller for the mid size. The thing is to keep it fairly even, so you don't in fill the airspaces we try to create, for good rooting, and growth.

Never heard the inverse theory, but the "drainage layer" is up in the air as to usefullness or problematic. Some swear that the other way is dead wrong, yet no drainage layer seems to work, as well as having the courser drainage layer.

Hope my experiance helps.

Bill