Now that you are two months into the season, how is your comparison doing?

I was following this thread with interest. I had used ProMix for years and when they only started offering the bales locally, I was disappointed in the product. I had also heard enough complaints on Miracle Gro that I was hesitant to use it so was following this thread with interest.

I'd say they're pretty much the same as far as my experience. When I first plant everything, I also add some earthworm castings (1/2 cup per 12" planter) and Osmocote time-released fertilizer. All planters are hooked up to a drip system so they get watered the same time every day, and there's a fertilizer unit hooked up to the drip system, so they get a smaller daily dose.

The left side 12" planter is Miracle-Gro regular potting mix, the right side is Pro-Mix in the 4 cu ft bales. The hanging planter above them fell when one of the plastic clips snapped off a few weeks ago and broke off 1/2 of the cuphea below it, so that lopsided look has nothing to do with either potting mix. There are feeders near there and birds often land on the taller red salvias and sometimes break them off under their weight, so either side might have more than the other because of having to cut the broken ones off, again nothing to do with the potting mix used. I couldn't figure out why some of those same salvias I started from seed are growing perfectly upright and others were leaning over... until I noticed the birds hanging from them.

They both looked like this about 10 days after first planted:


All 4 planters in the group yesterday:


While I really disliked the extra time it took breaking apart the 4 cu ft bales of Pro-Mix, that really slowed down the planting time, it did end up being half the cost of using Miracle-Gro. So it's definitely worth it for me to use again. With how I water and fertilize though, I couldn't say that one product out-performed the other at all, they've both performed pretty equally well. When I used Miracle-Gro Moisture Control Potting Mix one year, I found the same to be true, no difference in how well the plants did vs their regular potting mix. Whichever I can find the cheapest between these is what I'll use.

Breaking apart and moistening the ProMix is a pain but the price is usually right.

Thanks for that comparison. As usual, your planters/plantings are gorgeous.

Thank you. The Supertunias definitely need to be trimmed once more, they're literally laying on the ground. I just haven't felt like getting all sticky in this heat handling them.

I'm trying a new potting mix for this summer, Master Gardener Premium Potting Mix that I got for $7.29/2 cu ft bag including tax and rebates (only thing I hate about dealing with Menard's). Prices are much higher since Covid, and the sales are maybe $2 off per bag at best that are $19-24 here for Miracle-Gro.

There seems to be more options available this year for some reason locally, I don't remember these brands being available last few years. Since I add worm castings and Osmocote when planting, and add fertilizer through the drip system, I can't see why it wouldn't perform as well as pricey Miracle-Gro.

I tried dumping some of the old potting mix behind the garage last fall to see if it would break down enough to reuse at least some of it. It's still in the perfect chunks that I cut apart, held together firmly by all the roots, so that wouldn't work out.

The stuff they pass off as potting soil these days is basically mulch. I had to plant in it last year - was not prepared for modern "potting mix". I had to leave all my supplies in the last move, which included all my Growstone. I've used a mix of Growstone, peat, and bark mulch for years - the Growstone being infinitely reusable, but not when it gets left behind and they're out of business now (have been for about 5 years now I think).

I was shocked when EVERY single affordable bag of "garden soil" or whatever they labeled it turned out to be piles of splinters and ground up lumber. I can use it, with a lot of trouble, but its pretty awful.

This year I found a Miracle Grow product at Costco that is composed of peat, coconut coir, yucca fiber, and some other stuff. Not great - I hate coconut coir - but now I'm using this as a component of my own mix and for seed starting. It seems to be mostly peat, some visible bark (not like mulch bark but like bark you would expect to see in normal potting mix), misc unidentified "forest products", "compost" by which I'm pretty sure they just mean the bark bits, with coir and yucca fiber. I don't imagine there's a lot of yucca fiber in it. But at least it seems ok for seed starting and its not just a big pile of splinters. It was less than $9 a bag, and compared to $25 or $30 (or more) for other stuff that isn't a big pile of splinters for a bag half the size, I'll bear with it. Otherwise its peat and perlite from here on out for seed starting mix.

When I use containers these days I can't afford to fill them even with the $9 a bag stuff plus its too fine for plants anyway. I take whatever bag of splinters is on sale when I need it, mix it with a hefty dose of peat, some of the extra large perlite I have to order (may not be able to afford that any more either at post-Covid prices) wet it down VERY thoroughly because those splinters take forever to dampen, and that's what's in my containers these days. Well, that and the plants.

I never had problems with Miracle Grow. I commonly reused my potting mixes also. The Growstone mix was great but again - that's unobtainium now and I really regret losing my stash in the last move. Splinters, peat and perlite isn't great but it can work if you're careful with your fertilizing and soak it good before potting up with it.

Curious why you dislike coir? Personally, I prefer it to peat these days because it wets up so much faster. Also, it is pH neutral which helps with certain plants. I garden in the hot southest and if a container containing a peat mix dries out it is history. Coir absorbs water instantly and that can often save a plant.
I am old enough to remember when there were no potting mediums, we mixed peat with garden soil and home made compost.

Because when used by itself - which growers are starting to do - it has a habit of drying up faster than the surrounding soil when transplanted, shrinks like a mother, then when it gets rewet, it expands like a blowfish on steroids. It damages the roots in both directions, and if you water it often enough to keep that from happening outside of an automated greenhouse, you are overwatering. Things like lavender and rosemary are guaranteed to die of root rot. And you cannot wash the stuff off the roots before transplanting, believe me, once I saw which way the wind was blowing with this stuff, I TRIED. Nearly everything I bought last year that was planted in this stuff died.

And its not just me (and I have 60 years of gardening experience). Everybody I talked to last year who bought plants planted in this stuff had the same experience - plant deaths approaching 100%. I think my death rate was still around 85%, after making extensive efforts to save these plants. Believe you me, I am avoiding Home Despot like the plague this year. I've also seen this stuff turning up from other growers in this area this year, not buying that stuff either.

I often hear people complaining about the difficulty of "rewetting" peat. I've never had this happen in 60 years. Maybe I just don't let my plants get that dry. I mulch everything, including containers.

Cheap and easy in the greenhouse doesn't mean good in the wild. In a mix I surmise that perhaps the worst characteristics of coir are mitigated enough not to damage the plants. I guess we'll see, since this is the only seeding mix I can afford at the moment.

Hmmm,I too have well over 60 years of gardening expeience and have had very different results with coir. Of course, I would never plant only in coir, I use it only as part of a mix. Perhaps it is the excessive humidity where I live but it works for me and as a renewable resource I find it a lot less expensive than peat. Also, what the big box stores carry these days is not the peat I grew up with.

Having relatives in other parts of the country I have noticed there are different types of mulches available depending on where you are. It is interesting to note it is not just the weather but available procducts that produce differing results with plants.

Totally share the frustration with fibrous peat that won't come off of roots. Any plant in that stuff will die within a few months here. Moving to an exact same size clay pot can help keep those plants alive long enough to propagate.

Container growing and ground growing are not interchangeable. The ground does not have a perched water table, but a "bowl effect" can occur when a root ball is grounded into ground soil, that causes water to move unevenly between the root ball substance and the ground soil.

Grounding a root ball of any substance that is different from the ground soil could cause problems. I don't think it's an inherent issue with one substance vs. another, just the specific interaction between whatever substance and the ground soil - which can vary wildly.

I find pockets of peat (and bits of styrofoam!) and the occasional chunk of wood where store-bought root balls were grounded in previous years. Peat seems to be the worst, if worst = takes the most time, for decomposing and incorporating into the ground soil.

I have much better results if I propagate the purchased plant, then use those propagations as ground plants. And in the past few years, have found jiffy pot nets strangling the roots of several dead plants, which were purchased in MUCH bigger pots. If I hadn't noticed, I would have chalked those up to "too much peat" or "bowl effect." I'm usually in the caveat emptor camp on buying plants, but I put that in the "scammy" category. After throwing the pots away long ago, I don't know which plants to be suspicious of now.

Alice, I know what you mean about mulch. When I lived in OH, there was plain shredded hardwood available @ any store with plants, in bags, and places that would dump a truckload of your chosen volume in your yard or driveway. All of the mulch here is painted, treated, cypress, which I don't like the look of, or with or of synthetic stuff.

I've lived all over the country, east to west, north to south, AND on the island of Puerto Rico, and by and large the same mulch is sold in all the big box stores (except PR, where I didn't have to buy mulch because it was growing like mad all around me). What varies wildly is whether or not you can get free mulch from the city (when you are IN a city, sometimes I have been rural and that is yet another kettle of fish). And of course free mulch from the city is somewhat variable given what grows in the area you are in. However it doesn't vary a whole lot unless you end up in desert or near desert areas like Nevada and parts of Texas where there is no yard waste pickup because there are so few trees. Where there is yard waste pickup, the fact is that the vast majority of people (who are not generally on lists like this) tend to plant the same species over and over and over and over again, native or not. Hence you get a lot of elms, oaks, maples and miscellaneous pines and the like way outside their normal ranges, not to mention the dreaded arbor vitae. So ground up city trees tend to be mostly the same species in most of the country.

No, peat moss is not what peat moss was when I was young, and hasn't been for at least 30 years. That's also about how long its been since I've been able to get landscape-size-and-quality vermiculite. AND pine fines. Haven't seen those in 30 years either. Once I found Growstone and switched to peat moss, Growstone, and whatever sorta smallish bark mulch I could find, I stopped buying bagged mixes, so when I lost ALL my Growstone and had to rely on bagged stuff once again, the splinters they are now passing off as garden soil caught me by surprise. Also the shockingly high cost of the stuff that isn't just a big pile of splinters.

60 years ago we were using the Cornell mix, 1/3rd vermiculite, 1/3rd peat, and 1/3rd pine fines. Plus some mineral amendments. I have never ever used dirt out of the yard for starting plants and hope never to have to go there. I figure I'm not that much longer for this earth so ... I should be able to squeak by with the admittedly inferior mixture of peat, splinters, and perlite that is all I can lay my hands on these days.

Coir may very well behave differently in a high humidity environment, and going with 100% of ANYTHING for potted plants is usually a pretty bad idea to start with. Hence I'm willing to give this Miracle Grow stuff a shot (which they have labeled "Organic" and since it by default contains that moisture control nonsense definitely is NOT "Organic") - because its mainly peat and other things with a fairly large component of coir thrown in. But I won't be buying coir to add to a mix any time soon. It is most definitely NOT cheaper than peat anywhere I've ever lived and has to be special ordered if you want it in any reasonable quantity. I'm sure there are areas where that isn't the case, just not where I've been/am.

Its not all that ecological, either. Processing it for use in the agricultural industry involves a lot of chemicals, a WHOLE lot of water and generated water pollution, and exposes the generally 3rd world workers to a host of health problems from chemical exposure and breathing the dust it creates. It also most often has to be shipped halfway around the world. I don't think its necessarily WORSE than peat, but it isn't significantly better, ecologically speaking, either.

As for "peat" being hard to wash off the roots, that is definitely not my experience. Peat is easy to wash off roots on the rare occassions I've come across something planted in nearly pure peat. The old style peat, that was harder to remove without damaging the roots, but that hasn't been available for decades, at least not affordably. I paid $100 for a bale of it for use with orchids a couple of years ago. What you get now is finely ground but with enough sticks and other chunks in it that you still can't really just throw it in a spreader and top dress your lawn with it (which is what they seem to think its sole use by consumers is now).

But the coir won't come off no matter how long you soak or swish. Its like all those tiny particles have teensy hooks that are just hanging on to each other for dear life.

Thanks. I'll pass on the stuff for as long as possible.

Oh yeah. And I don't get "bowl" effects, for several reasons, the most important of those being worms. When I plant an area, I dig up the whole area and remove as many roots and junk as I can. If I amend soil, I amend the entire area. I mulch the entire area. I've gone, in less than one year, from 0 worms in my yard to worms everywhere I stick a shovel in. When I scrape my mulch back - and its undyed hardwood and cedar "mix" mulch - there are worms at the top of the soil as well as a shovel's depth down. If there is a lot of peat moss in a plant you've stuck in the ground, the worms will go through and pretty well pull it out throughout the garden bed. Once its gone through their digestive tract its not the same stuff any more.

I, too, have found entire balls of potting mix left over from some old plant somebody just stuck in a hole in the ground. Just not from anything in an area *I* used to plant things. I don't make "bowls" to start with.

I think what you're calling coir is what I'm calling fibrous peat. Are the root balls you're describing as if the roots are growing in a ball of rough hair?

Having lots of worms is not all it is cracked up to be. I have lots of worms and lots of armadillos also. They dig big holes all over the yarden and leave a mess.

Alice, are you saying the armadillos dig up the garden to get worms?

Yes, worms, grubs, etc. are their fav foods. My yard is fenced but they just dig under the fence for the goodies. My neighbors who do not have gardens have no issue with them. The love the rich, friable, composty soil.

OK, thank you. : )

purpleinopp said: I think what you're calling coir is what I'm calling fibrous peat. Are the root balls you're describing as if the roots are growing in a ball of rough hair?

I don't have a good way to explain what it looks like except to say that when its wet/damp its hard for me to tell the difference between the coir and the shredded peat that's so common these days. It is a bit springier when wet than peat is. The most obvious difference is the way it shrinks like crazy (when its the pure stuff) when it dries out. And while I don't think peat is all THAT hard to rewet (but then I rarely let it get that dry and if I'm wetting it its because I pulled it out of a bag and into a wheelbarrow to mix up some potting medium), coir soaks water up really fast when you do rewet it. I find it to be way dustier than peat when its dry also.

Another clue, at least around here, is that I have never seen anybody plant anything in pure peat, but growers selling to the big box stores here are relying on pure coir as a planting medium. Things look great coming right out of the greenhouses but they don't last long in the stores because there is no perfectly controlled watering and humidity at Home Despot and Blowes. Or Valdemart, either. Last year I only saw pure coir at Home Despot but I'm seeing it at all the big boxes this year.

Then when you get it home and try to plant it its even worse. Even if you get the plants in the ground right away, our conditions are not conducive to keeping that ball of coir around the roots evenly damp. Its just a killer under these conditions. Might be fine in a mix, but it is the worst used by itself.

I had a dog who kept the armadilloes away when I was living rurally in MO. A border collie mix. Also kept the deer out of my garden. Turns out they don't like to be herded.

I came home one day and she met me at the barn and led me to the bodies of two raccoons. She was VERY proud that day!

Once I heard a ruction outside and ran to see what was up. All I could see was the tip of Fidget's tale bobbing above the pasture grass. Then she switched suddenly, there was a yowl, and the scent of skunk wafted across the pasture. Fidget had no problem dodging (she was fast) but unfortunately the cat was not so swift.

LOL! What kind of dog was Fidget? Sounds like a good dog!