Viewing post #2551879 by sedumzz

SamuelA said:Hi All,

I've doing some research on improving the soil mix for my succulents and have ran into a lot of different suggestions. Everything from things like pumice, perlite to things that I haven't even heard of. Like chicken grit, turface, NAPA 8822, etc.

Can someone explain what these are used for (as in what's used for improving aeration and drainage vs what's used as top dressing)? And also what the typical cost is for them?

I've just been using some regular succulent and cacti soil from Home Depot and added some perlite to it. But I've noticed that the soil mix tends to become hydrophobic after a little while, so I am looking to change it.

From what I can tell, pumice is hard to find on the East coast, so that might not be an option for me. I haven't been able to find Turface either but I can get 25 lb bags of both NAPA 8822 (www.napaonline.com/en/p/NFN8822) and chicken grit (www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/manna-pro-poultry-grit-25-lb) for about $10 each. That seems like a fairly good price.

Any other sources/products that I should be looking at? Would prefer to stay on the cheaper side, if possible.

Also would any of these products help with traditional houseplants too?

Helooooooooooooooo I am not the most good person at this stuff, but i have some tips!!!~~~

Mix:
I'd just go with succulent/cactus mix if it is the easiest to find. Of course, I would add amendmants! Ok, so depending on what to grow, you might want to add sand. For semps I would add a little bit, if you are going to grow companions such as sedum which need more water, you would add more. My mix is about 40% sand, 20% perlite (replace with pumice), strain it so the fine dust is not in the mix, and 50% perlitey-garden-generic-mix. That's because I mainly grow sedum in it.
Chicken grit could also be used, but I think it is the best for topdressing. If it is very humid you may want to add more chickengrit/perlite for topdressing andmix.

You could use it for houseplants, but not for tropical ones. plants such as hoya, and other aroids would be fine, but i'd not use sand and replace it with wood chips or bark shreds from things like orchid mix.

If you do it for indoor succs, again, i would not use sand, I would just use that otherwise.