For plants in the ground that sounds like a good mix. For plants in containers my question would be what is that garden soil, is it just dirt from out of the ground or is it some kind of rich compostey organic mix from a bag (or from your own compost)? The latter would probably work a lot better in containers, but I don't know what the soil in the ground is like where you are.

I would say a great all-purpose mix for succulents in containers is 50% organic (like bagged potting mix, something with mature compost in it, whatever you have available locally, but not dense and chunky) and 50% inorganic (like pumice, perlite, fine grit, or whatever but not fine sand). You can use more inorganic if your plants receive a lot of rain or they are particularly sensitive to excess moisture.

The succulent recipe is for use in the rock gardens I'll be attempting. The garden soil is Miracle- Gro. I don't really have garden property, so I container garden veggies. Annuals go in various pots and boxes. My yard is plastic covered with gravel ( photos in the rock garden forum), and this is where I want to build a few rock gardens.

Front range Colorado, high desert ... drought conditions. My soil is mostly clay. Gardening here can be a challenge. Not only growing, but keeping the deer and bears from dining on my all you can eat unfenced property/salad bar.

Your recipe sounds good then. To avoid any potential drainage issues with the clay soil underneath the planted area, just be sure your planted area is elevated above that soil, or on a slope so that the water never pools in any given area long enough to cause issues.

Thank you. The yard is gently sloped, and for the most, the only water plants get will be from my hose ... rain would be nice, but we're not counting on it. I want to choose plants that require little water. The challenge is the gravel, the somewhat degraded plastic, and then the ground underneath, which is extremely hard-packed.

Rather than having to dig (it would be difficult), I'm going to do what someone suggested and do a mounded rock garden. It'll be a lot of experimenting.

Baja_Costero said: Your recipe sounds good then. To avoid any potential drainage issues with the clay soil underneath the planted area, just be sure your planted area is elevated above that soil, or on a slope so that the water never pools in any given area long enough to cause issues.

It sounds like you have a good plan. I used to live in colo springs, so I know just what your climate is like. Good luck, and come back here if you have any questions.

My main mix for my cactus and succulents is around 85% coarse perlite and 15% Black Gold cactus mix.
Almost all my plants grow great in this mix. Maybe 3 or 4 that seem to not do the best in it, looking like they want a more water retention soil mix.
I've posted a lot of pictures around this forum and I think most would agree, that soil mix, for me works great.

What my soil looks like.


But, I'm a tinkerer.

Today I was going to buy some orchid bark to re-pot some African Violets this weekend.
I have not tried bark in any of my AV mixes before, but thought I would since I'm re-potting them.
A small bag of orchid bark $7.99, or a huge bag of pine bark mulch for $4.99.
I went with the $4.99 bag.





My thought is I will start to add a small amount of the bark to my cactus and succulent mix as I re-pot them....
I think I'll still have a 3/4 or fuller bag in 50 years.... LOL

I live in Florida and started with small cacti that I moved from plastic to clay pots with cacti potting mix purchased at home depot. I knew absolutely nothing about growing them and chose some because I liked how they looked. Many had no name given to them. Some died from root rot. I halted watering my cacti and found they were then doing better. I took to the internet and studied about cacti and what their needs were. I discovered that I had some mammallaria, opuntia, etc. I then started showing more care when purchasing so I would know better. Some got too big to keep in pots so I put them in my yard in the sandy soil here with pebbles around them. We go through dry spells here and then we can have rain everyday. I was afraid they would die when we get a lot of rain. But, the soil is so sandy that it doesn't take long for the soil to dry out again. Soon, my cacti were producing so many pups that I needed to pot them up.
I have a lot of cacti and succulents now and when they go in the ground they just get my sandy soil. When pottting them its sandy soil, crushed granite that I get at tractor supply (They sell it for chickens) and some perlite. My neighbor dug up his yard to put in a pool, so we asked if we could have some of the sandy soil. I now have a hill of it in my backyard. My cacti and succulents are blooming and reproducing. I regret wasting so much money on the potting mix. But, this is what I have found that works for me in the circumstances my cacti have to live within.
For my other succulents I had been using the cacti potting mix, but then decided to grow some in the pots with the cactus in the mix mentioned above. They went from being cute specimens to growing so much that I have to frequently thin them out.
So to sum up my experience, it depends on the cacti or succulent you are planting. With the variety of plants we are able to acquire from around the world, it's worth taking the time to know where your plant originally came from. Some want full sun, some will burn in full sun. Some want a little more soil in the mix. In general, my succulents and cacti seem to really thrive when crowded in a pot, left in the right location (full or part sun, or bright light with no sun) and the more porous the soil the more water they can take.
I included some pics of some of my collection so you can see in the ground, in the pot, clustered together and close ups of the sandy soil and sandy soil with some of the original potting mix the plant came with added.
There is no magic bullet when there are variables.

Since I did some potting today, something I did not put in my previous post that I thought I'd add.
When I pot my plants, the bottom of the pot, before I fill it with my soil mix, gets a layer, about 1/2" of straight coarse perlite.


I then add my my soil mix.
This is what the new mix I'm trying out looks like with some pine bark mulch added.

Some soil I made up today:



50% screened pumice (<1/4 inch)
25% cocofiber
25% compost

Depending on how much of a hurry I'm in and the number of holes at the bottom of the pot, I might lay down a monolayer (ie. a layer one rock thick) of chunky pumice (>1/4 inch size) before starting with the soil. This seems to help with some plants after years of settling and further composting has taken place, to ensure the bottom of the pot still drains freely. Time does have effects on the density and openness of soil mixes when there is organic matter involved.

So many organic component.. My latest soil mix now has been:
- 2 cups pumice
- 2 cups black lava rock
- 2 cups red lava rock
- 2 cups charcoal
- 1 cup cocopeat
- 1 spoon of NPK

Some slow release fertilizer during repotting, I suspect the garden soil/compost that I used previously may have triggered the growth of the brown fungus.

I also apply 1/2 to 1 inch of broken terracotta / bricks at the bottom of the pot, to help the draining and to help on retaining some moisture.

My containers are too heavy to move

Where do you get your pumice?

It is available here locally, but I understand that is not the case in many parts of the US. You might look for a product called Dry Stall that is sold in feed stores. I also read somewhere that this store near you might be helpful:

https://www.thehiddengardens.n...

Thank you, Baja

I may try that Dry Stall in my cat box too!

MySecretIslandGarden said: I live in Florida and started with small cacti that I moved from plastic to clay pots with cacti potting mix purchased at home depot. I knew absolutely nothing about growing them and chose some because I liked how they looked. Many had no name given to them. Some died from root rot. I halted watering my cacti and found they were then doing better. I took to the internet and studied
about cacti and what their needs were. I discovered that I had some mammallaria, opuntia, etc. I then started showing more care when purchasing so I would know better. Some got too big to keep in pots so I put them in my yard in the sandy soil here with pebbles around them. We go through dry spells here and then we can have rain everyday. I was afraid they would die when we get a lot of rain. But, the soil is so sandy that it doesn't take long for the soil to dry out again. Soon, my cacti were producing so many pups that I needed to pot them up.
I have a lot of cacti and succulents now and when they go in the ground they just get my sandy soil. When pottting them its sandy soil, crushed granite that I get at tractor supply (They sell it for chickens) and some perlite. My neighbor dug up his yard to put in a pool, so we asked if we could have some of the sandy soil. I now have a hill of it in my backyard. My cacti and succulents are blooming and reproducing. I regret wasting so much money on the potting mix. But, this is what I have found that works for me in the circumstances my cacti have to live within.
For my other succulents I had been using the cacti potting mix, but then decided to grow some in the pots with the cactus in the mix mentioned above. They went from being cute specimens to growing so much that I have to frequently thin them out.
So to sum up my experience, it depends on the cacti or succulent you are planting. With the variety of plants we are able to acquire from around the world, it's worth taking the time to know where your plant originally came from. Some want full sun, some will burn in full sun. Some want a little more soil in the mix. In general, my succulents and cacti seem to really thrive when crowded in a pot, left in the right location (full or part sun, or bright light with no sun) and the more porous the soil the more water they can take.
I included some pics of some of my collection so you can see in the ground, in the pot, clustered together and close ups of the sandy soil and sandy soil with some of the original potting mix the plant came with added.
There is no magic bullet when there are variables.

Wonderful post. Your photos show you live in paradise, so I'm a bit jealous.

Allow me to introduce kanuma soil from Japan, similar to akadama soil, they are the more expensive soils among the cactus lovers here. It is because they are imported from Japan.
Main characters of Kanuma:
- ph 6 , akadama soil around 6.5
- can easily break into dust under pressure.
- they absorb water fast, and can change color when they are wet, light yellow when dry and change to orange color when wet


I started to use them as media toppings on some of my cactus, this will be a big help in understanding the moisture of the media.
Look at the pots below, the size of the pots are 5cm x 5cm, height 6cm.
I made a bottom watering for all pots in a 1 cm shallow water for just 1 to 1.5 second, bottom watered the pots one by one, and immediately tilt the pot side way to allow the excess water to come out from drain.
This photo was taken 24 hours after the watering, I can easily know that the media with orange color had more water/moisture than the yellow/white media, hope this can help me not to over water the plants.

Yes, I do use also both kanuma and akadama before when we are able to go to Japantown in SF. Love the texture of both media.

I can get them in small baggies, since I alao mix them with pumice and chicken grit, that way it will not be too expensive for my use.

I am unable to post a link to the paper, however last month there was a paper published entitled:
Effects of Different Potting Media on the Growth of Commercial Cacti
by Kittiphan Ritthidechrat and Chamaiporn Anuwong

This research aims to study the appropriate growing media for the
growth of cacti that can reduce production costs and promote cacti's growth.
The research used four genera of cacti, i.e., Gymnocalycium, Astrophytum,
Mammillaria, and Echinopsis, which were famous in the commercial market in
Thailand

There may be a flaw in the paper regarding the measurement of root volume, insofar as increased root growth does not always correlate to larger or faster plants, as their own images show with Echinopsis. However the paper has good information and is highly relevant to this topic. It can be found as Research Gate.

I found Dry Stall to be quite heavy so chose not to use it in my pots as I'm wanting to make them lighter.

tropicofcancer said: I do grow a bunch of succulents in the gritty mix. It is composed of granite grit (actually chicken grit grower size between 1/16 and 3/16 in size), turface (1/16 to 1/4) and pine bark (1/8-1/4). To do this epsom salt and gypsum is added at 1tbsp each per gallon to provide the initial Ca and Mg. This is the basic mix.

What would be the reasons to use epsom salt and gypsum instead of just adding a general purpose time-release fertilizer like Osmocote into the mix?

I think most fertilizers only have macronutrients (NPK), whereas Mg and Ca are micronutrients.

But, I use seaweed fertilizer myself to cover all the micronutrients. I would think gypsum would have a negative effect pH wise, but maybe cacti and succulents don't care.