Free Draining Soil Mix

How to mix your own cactus and succulent soil.

Free draining soil mix.

Sphagnum moss is also used as a liner for hanging baskets of plants. A simple test to find out if your soil is well draining. The fifth and final way to improve soil drainage is to use additives in your soil. With a neutral ph perlite is easy to find at nurseries and garden centers.

Mix the native clay half and half with coarse sand or crusher fines. There are a few different ones that will make your soil drain better and perhaps help with nutrition at the same time. This is the most common and well known additive to improve soil drainage. Soilless potting mix starting seeds in soil.

Don t use fine sand. Check out this earlier post about coir. You don t know what s coming in with it. 1 part commercial potting soil.

Fill the hole with water then allow it to drain completely before filling it again. Perlite is a lightweight sterile addition to bagged and homemade potting mixes. I like it because it loosens up the mix while adding a bit of water retention. Sphagnum peat moss is mixed into sandy soils to help hold moisture and into clay soils to loosen the soil and improve drainage.

Cacti and succulents thrive better in soil that drains easily and doesn t retain a lot of water. The essential element in well drained soil is oxygen. If the water drains from the hole in 10 minutes or less you have fast draining soil. If the water takes an hour or more to drain you have poorly draining soil.

In contrast to peat coir rewets easily and doesn t compress as readily. 1 besides being free of disease and other contaminants you can. Disease spores bacteria plant eating insects weed. Fill it with water.

Dig a hole once the soil and compost are completely combined that is 12 inches square and about 12 inches deep. A soilless mix gives you more control. If your soil is well draining the time the water takes to drain. Perlite helps aerate the soil hold water and keep soil from packing down.

Commercial nurseries often sell pre mixed bags of special soil but this is often at a premium. Bark is added to. Use additives to improve soil drainage. When planting perennial plants that like well drained soils in clay the best thing to do is to create a raised bed or berm mounded pile of soil.

This will create concrete. One popular brand of perlite is espoma perlite.