what is your outdoor 'in ground' mix?

[MichaelCactus]

Thanks for the heads up Lewis, but i think my dad bought it If he has bought it, how would mixing in rocks and some very rough sand do? Im still trying to work out the best soil for my garden, so if i can get something nice, i wont need it, but what i have now just doesnt drain

[echinopsis ed]

I saw a bag of cacti potting mix at Bunnings, so im going to fill the garden bed with the new soil mix, then in the holes im gonna plant the plants in, im going to put the potting mix in like CC sai

Michael, i am telling you that the Bunnings cactus mix is not good quality. all that i have seen has consisted of excessively fine particles, which hold way too much water.. might be fine in times of drought and dry summers, but your plants may object to soaking wet roots during cold wet winter spells. A far better alternative is to get the cheapest mulit-purpose potting mix you can find at Bunnings, and then get cheap 'propagating sand' and mix the two together. if either of the ingredients appear to be too fine.. a solution i have found is to seive it over with a flyscreen, removing all fine particles and leaving the better coarse stuff. The resulting mix will give you very fast drainage and reduced water holding.then just add some cheap slow release fertilizer and/or blood and bone and your plants will thrive.

Bunnings sometimes sell a poor cacti and succulent mix depending on what store you visit. I use the Debco Cacti & Succulent mix myself.


My cacti garden bed consists of a manure based soil which I got from one of the local nurseries. Everywhere I plant a cactus in the open garden, I just dig a hole and fill it with the cacti mix.

Everything seems to be going okay so far.

[iann]

Are Oz potting soils mostly made from peat? Where do you get it from? There aren't any peat bogs in the outback are there? Do you float it across from New Zealand?

[cactusboy]

The majority of the potting soils in OZ are made from decomposed pine bark including the cactus mix.

Debco has recently changed the composition of their mix , it's much more porous and the pine bark is much larger than the previous mix. The previous mix included zeolite and water saving granules.

I use the Debco mix as well but mix it with at least 50% inorganic matter (coarse sand, perlite, and pumice) for most my collection.

[echinopsis ed]

The majority of the potting soils in OZ are made from decomposed pine bark including the cactus mix.

Debco has recently changed the composition of their mix , it's much more porous and the pine bark is much larger than the previous mix. The previous mix included zeolite and water saving granules.

I use the Debco mix as well but mix it with at least 50% inorganic matter (coarse sand, perlite, and pumice) for most my collection.

I also noticed a change in the Debco mix. It is very similar to the native plant mix I used from another brand except without the gravel added. I actually use the native plant for my succulents instead of the cacti mix and have achieved better growth results.

[MichaelCactus]

That Debco was the Cacti mix i was talking about, but it doesnt matter now, gardens filled in with what im guessing is a whole lot of potting mix and scorria

[daiv]

Pine bark sounds great - for Epis, but not for other cacti.

Sure with the certain watering and repotting you can make it work, but I sure wouldn't use it in the ground. It is only a short matter of time before it decays into a very rich compost that will rot the heck out of your roots.