..then pick up the phone and call around. I'm pretty sure that you'll find a nursery selling granite gravel you can drive to. When you call, ask for small or extra-small gravel you'll be using to improve drainage in your cactus soil. Amazon isn't the only "game in town", and there's something to be said for supporting our local businesses.
If you just want photos without all the blather, please visit my Flickr gallery.
My location: Los Angeles, CA (Zone 10b)
Make sure one of the components IS NOT recycled yard waste . Golden barrel cactus pretty easy to grow not picky about soil just make sure it drains well.
I don't use any bagged compost for cactus but if I did I would add 50% small gravel or pumice or turface or perlite or floor dry .
Floor-Dry™ brand diatomaceous earth (DE) absorbent is highly purified and kiln-fired for superior absorbent qualities. The unique structure of the diatomite provides Floor-Dry brand DE greater pore space. Because of this, pound for pound it absorbs more liquid than any other mineral on the market today. In fact, Floor-Dry absorbs twice as much liquid as calcined clay.
darth1211 wrote: ↑Tue Jun 20, 2023 6:35 pmI think the soil I bought has 25% perlite and 75% soil.
Okay, that's good to know! When you add mineral gravel (pumice, granite gravel, etc.), you can do it proportionally:
Add 1 part mineral gravel to 2 parts cactus soil.
The resulting mix will give you a total of 50% soil and 50% mineral, so that should be just fine. Mix the ingredients thoroughly in a container before you repot the plant. (Inexperienced cactus growers try to be fancy by layering ingredients, but that never works.) The only problem with perlite is that it floats in water (so does soil), and the mix will get all over the base of the plant. A good thick layer of gravel top dressing keeps the floaty stuff down.
By the way -- in case you weren't already aware of this, golden barrels get really big -- as much as 3 feet tall and 3 feet in diameter. I don't know if they get that big in pots, but if you do well with yours, you'll need bigger pots as it continues to grow over the years.
I can't find any local Bonsai Nurseries. Might have to buy online. Yes, I've seen some giant golden barrel cactuses before, and they're huge!
Steve Johnson wrote: ↑Wed Jun 21, 2023 12:43 am
Okay, that's good to know! When you add mineral gravel (pumice, granite gravel, etc.), you can do it proportionally:
Add 1 part mineral gravel to 2 parts cactus soil.
The resulting mix will give you a total of 50% soil and 50% mineral, so that should be just fine. Mix the ingredients thoroughly in a container before you repot the plant. (Inexperienced cactus growers try to be fancy by layering ingredients, but that never works.) The only problem with perlite is that it floats in water (so does soil), and the mix will get all over the base of the plant. A good thick layer of gravel top dressing keeps the floaty stuff down.
By the way -- in case you weren't already aware of this, golden barrels get really big -- as much as 3 feet tall and 3 feet in diameter. I don't know if they get that big in pots, but if you do well with yours, you'll need bigger pots as it continues to grow over the years.
I can't find any local Bonsai Nurseries. Might have to buy online. Yes, I've seen some giant golden barrel cactuses before, and they're
..then pick up the phone and call around. I'm pretty sure that you'll find a nursery selling granite gravel you can drive to. When you call, ask for small or extra-small gravel you'll be using to improve drainage in your cactus soil. Amazon isn't the only "game in town", and there's something to be said for supporting our local businesses.
..then pick up the phone and call around. I'm pretty sure that you'll find a nursery selling granite gravel you can drive to. When you call, ask for small or extra-small gravel you'll be using to improve drainage in your cactus soil. Amazon isn't the only "game in town", and there's something to be said for supporting our local businesses.
Thanks! I'll see what I can do. May have replied to another comment by accident lol
I haven't seen any good pre-made cactus soil in the stores. The good one for desert or grasslands' cacti should consist mainly of grit or pumice, other coarse inorganic material and not to be soft at touch. Peat- or organic based ones are soft, so not very good.
For epiphytes any mix for orchids will be OK probably.
If your cacti mess in your job just forget about the job.
°C = (°F - 32)/1.8
Interesting thing about ferti-lome cactus soil. I was just looking at a bag I had.
It "claims" to have "Calcitic and Dolomitic limestone".
Good for South US and mexican cacti. Astrophytum for example. None of the other bagged mixes list having that.
It gives no %. I myself have been sifting pave stone gravel and saving the fines and throwing the rocks in the driveway,just to add a little limestone to the mix
I could not get granite gravel in the UK from the plant nurseries but I could get quarter inch to dust at our local builders merchant and then screen the fine dust out. If you leave the fine dust in it sets like cement, so try your local builders merchant. However unless you can collect it yourself locally being heavy transport costs make small amounts uneconomic.
