What do you keep around to cover making most soil mixes? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 month ago by glimse@lemmy.world to c/houseplants@mander.xyz

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When I started getting more serious about plantkeeping last year, I picked up the essentials for repotting the plants I had. I have potting mix, perlite, orchid bark, spaghum moss, and fertilizer pellets

But times have changed and I may have impulse bought a bunch of caudex roots online and I definitely don't have the right soil for it so I have to pick up some cactus soil. I also may have purchased a bunch of seeds of various plants...

I figured if I'm driving to the supply store, I might as well get everything I might need. So what do you keep around if you want to be able to pot anything?

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[-] Polkira@piefed.ca 3 points 1 month ago

I have too much stuff lol. I went semi-hydro for a bit so I have leca, bonsai mix, and zeolite (zeolite was a bag of ecotraction). I also bought some silica sand (i think it was a bag of pool filter? it was cheaper) to mix into soil to make carnivorous plant medium.

These days I mostly just use potting soil, cactus soil, perlite, and orchid bark. I prefer pumice over perlite since it doesn't rise to the top when you water, but perlite is cheaper. I keep a bag of sphagnum moss for growing alocasia corms, though I've also used leca for that and it works well too.

I grew a bunch of succulents and a caudex plant from seeds in cactus soil, they did well (I also had fungus gnats at the time so I lost some to those).

my caudex plants now mostly live in a 1:1:1 mix of cactus soil (or regular soil if I've forgotten that I use cactus soil for them), perlite, and orchid bark. They're all pretty happy.

this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2026

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