I saw a great deal on "Miracle grow potting soil" what's everyone's thoughts or experience with this product?

I use nothing that has the word "soil" on the bag, only potting "mix".

My mistake. It does say potting mix soil less

Not a fan of MG potting mix straight out of the package for daylilies. Daylilies in containers require excellent drainage - almost as good as some cactus & succulents. I grow most of my daylilies in containers and my mix is composed of compost, bark fines, perlite, and small sharp edged aquarium gravel. Perhaps if you blended enough additional ingredients with the Miracle Gro potting mix base it might suite, but the peat in it can be problematic if not tempered with other things that insure faster drainage........Maryl

I used to use potting mix, including miracle grow for potting up my Daylilies. I've had better luck with mixing my own using mostly pine bark fines. Daylilies seem to have different needs than a lot of other perennials.

I have used MG potting mix for starting seed, but use pine bark fines mixed with 10% sand for potting.

gargoyl52 said:I saw a great deal on "Miracle grow potting soil" what's everyone's thoughts or experience with this product?

The formulations vary regionally so we wouldn't necessarily all be comparing exactly the same product. For example the label on their web site gives the different ingredients for each of Idaho, Texas, New Hampshire, California and Georgia. See label:

http://en-ca.miraclegro.com/sm...

I once used MG potting soil that I got here in Ontario, probably at Canadian Tire. I started daylily seeds in it and they did not do very well. It was the only soilless mix I could get in the middle of winter for a seed experiment and it seemed too dense to me, but of course it's not formulated for seed starting so it's not necessarily fair to comment from that point of view. For seed germination I had much better results with vermiculite or perlite, but maybe for growing on the MG would work OK.

I use Farfard potting mix: http://fafard.com/ (If you happen to have a nursery near you that carries this potting mix, I highly recommend this product!)

I also use pine fines.

I don't believe we can get pine fines here, have never seen them but I know we can get Farfard, which I plan on using next summer.

I make my own pine bark fines. Buy a bag of regular pine bark mulch, sift it through a 1/4 inch wire screen and voila - pine bark fines AND the larger chunks are left over for bark mulch in your garden. And just as a note - since my daylilies will be staying in their pots permanently it's important to have the addition of the Aquarium gravel to compensate for the bark fines which will break down in about a growing season or so. The soil may then become more compact then is good for the daylily. If you are just potting for the short term you may skip it I guess, but from my experience, its better to add it then tons of perlite as a solution to the inevitable bark fines decay. ....Maryl

Good advice, Maryl!

Aquarium gravel instead of perlite? What about adding sand for drainage?

Sand is what I use for drainage, works very well.

Whether it's sand, aquarium gravel or perlite. Do you mix it in with the potting mix or put a layer at the bottom of the pot?

You should mix it with the potting mix because it helps to prevent the soil from compacting.

Also a layer of coarser material underlaying finer material actually impedes drainage rather than improves it. So the medium should have the same consistency/texture throughout an entire pot for that reason also.

Got some Fafard agro mix to try. See how they like it.

There's a bit of sand already in my compost mix, which is a private blend made up by a local nursery. Were I to start with my own raw compost I would probably add a bit of coarse builders sand (NOT childrens play box sand) to it as well. My potting mix for daylilies is an offshoot of the famous Al's gritty mix which is highly recommended for cactus and succulents. That recipe calls for things such as Pumice, turfice, granite chips- things not readily available to me. Small aquarium gravel (sharp edged, not the rounded kind) was not only more easily obtainable, but filled the bill for daylilies as a permanent roughage element. It's taken me years to get the proportions adjusted on my daylily mix (which I still fiddle with every year), but it seems to be paying off. Some of my daylilies in smaller pots have been with me for 10 years now - and again, this mix is for the long haul, not just a year or two. But this is not to say that there is not more then one way to make a cake. If it works for you use it.............Maryl