Cactii potting mix

[Magicdirt]

Can anyone tell me if commercial cactii potting mixes are reliable and if so any particular brands or any to avoid?

Is it better to mix your own ?

Does anyone have any recipies for their own mix ?

I intend to be growing Trichs ond lophs at first.

I have a lot Aloes and they seem to do OK in potting mix with added rock dust and sand.

Any advice would be appreciated.

[lofty86]

Propagation sand, perlite, and a few handfulls of regular potting mix does the trick Ive only tried a comercial cactus mix once and i was bitterly dissapointed. got it from bunnings "cacti and suculent mix" the bag was full of woodchips and clay soil almost half my cacti got rot and died

[Snaggletooth]

my advice,if using commercial mixes, Searles cacti mix( usually QLD only)or Debco cacti mix or mixing your own(usually best). For fert i would use a good qual organic eg. ECO88 or for slow release, i would use Nutricote black or even slower release. aviod osmocote as it dumps nitrogen too quickly. I've had really good results with ECO88, i highly recommend. Probably can only find in Qld though.

Edited May 5, 2010 by Snaggletooth

[PD.]

Is it better to mix your own

imo yes.

Most ppl here will have their own mix recipe which is generally potting mix, sand, perhaps perlite and maybe some seived compost, bit of loam here and there, ash, gravel, limestone, coir and so on.

Sometimes just plain old 2 dollar potting mix with some sand thrown in is all that is needed and will perform for a season or two. It is pretty easy to make a mix up by eye, sorta just looks right, not too much sand, not too much dark potting mix etc. The main thing to remember if its trichs you are growing then they will grow in just about anything, very forgiving plants. Get some different media and throw it together, see which is easiest/best/cheapest for you and tha plants.

[eccentro]

As was said earlier, the store bought cactus mix (just about all the premade mixes) seem to have a lot of wood chips in them (cheap filler I guess). If I have to use them, I strain the wood chunks out with a home-made straining screen, which helps some. For my trichos, I do 50% perlite, 20% sand, and 30% good organic soil. I fertilize with slow release 10/10/10 or so. Works for me.

[bℓσωηG]

does anyone else add a bit of kitty litter?

[PD.]

I was actually looking into that earlier this year blowng, well i went looking once, couldnt find the ones i was after so gave up on the idea. Bentonite and/or moler is what i was after i think. I should go have another look, i think i only tried 2 places, halfassed.

[bℓσωηG]

I haven't access to clay in my area ,so I have been adding some cat litter to mixes, but I find the clumping type too moisture retaining, .The cheap homebrand one just says ''clay'' product mined in Australia, the only one i could find with bentonite was $9 for 1kg <___base_url___>/uploads/emoticons/default_wacko.png which was mined in Argentina. I can't believe I paid that much for cat litter , even though it was very nice cat litter hahaha..

[Magicdirt]

Thanks for the help everyone, it confirms what I was thinking.

I don't trust a lot or regular potting mixes for general use either, I prefer to mix my own.

Much appreciated, thanks again.

[shortly]

To some extent you will need to use what is available in your area, the important things are correct porosity ability to retain moisture & its ability to hold nutrients CEC. Bentonite is great for this in small doses.

My mixes generally consist of 20% compost, 20% perlite, 10% deco (decomposed granite) & 50% coal ash.

You should be aiming for about 35% porosity at field capacity.