Noki,

Well, I can't think of one that can't be made better with the addition of drainage materials, but from what I've seen you're almost better off with a brand other than MG (entirely too much organic muck in it, IMO) or some similar first-tier company. I've bought two other types and they're OK, as long as I cut them with 50% Turface and some gravel.

How much gravel do you use, cactusmcharris? With all of your succulents? Do you just mix it in same as perlite/pumice/turface?

After trying many brands in bags I found two that im very pleased with & I think everyone here would agree, E. B. STONE cactus mix & SUNSHINE # 4 Google where to find them their the perfect blend and your plants will love them i'll stake my name on this one there great and ready to go try them an you'll see , results are amazing im glad you brought up the subject and so will others not to mention your cacti & succulents.

if you REALLY want a good draining mix, go with Al's gritty mix, or a variation of it. I switched all of my succulents to it, and they are doing better than ever. I am finding though that the pine/fir bark isn't necessary, but I use acidic rain water.

Joe

I use about 15% bagged mix and 85% pumice, sometimes adding grit or perlite. At those ratios, I don't worry too much about the bagged mix, but I try to avoid peat if I can.

Ive never tried black gold cactus mix but i will give it a shot, the supersoil #4 only comes in bales that i know of but it is a nice blend of pumice, perilite, and several nutrients that help promote strong healthy growth, so does e b stone mix.

I use the Black Gold Cactus Mix distributed by Sun Gro of Bellevue, WA. I mix in Turface. I have a bag of E.B. Stone as well, but the first 2 mentioned are what I use most, although all 3 products are in the mix pictured below.
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I potted up my free echinocacti with it.
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And this Aloe Vera (3 bucks at a garage sale)...
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got potted up too because there were a bunch of rocks in the old pot around the base of the plant, there were privet seedlings growing there, and the soil was not ideal. This be the end result, although I did clean up the dried out lower fronds later because I was also cooking dinner during the repotting project.
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Mama Z,

It varies on the plant and the pot which I'm putting it/them in, but a handful at the least, if it's lying around. If I have a surfeit of a particular top dressing, I just might go a little crazy and use that as part of Le Mix.

The problem with most of these bagged mixes is that their primary ingredient is still peat moss.
I've used many mixes that are allegedly made for Cacti or for Bonsai - none of them satisfactory from the bag.
Now I do everything I can to avoid fine particulate like peat moss.

Pumice, scoria, turface, napa floor-dry #8822, fine fir/pine bark, granite, quartz, et cetera...
these are the ingredients that make a very good base for a mix (for most plants).

Josh

Why wouldn't some of the Bonsai mixes be okay, to start with?

Hoffman's Bonsai mix ingredients... Haydite (expanded shale), sand pebble, aged pine bark (pieces are big enough to see), Turface

New England Bonsai Gardens mix ingredients... Coarse River Sand, Fine Pine Bark (pieces are small), Turface

also bought a bag of Pumice from New England Bonsai.

I too have swithched to a totally soiless mix, much like Al's gritty mix. Some have 100% turface and others have a mixture of pumice, turface and gravel, all relatively the same size particles. I've noticed quite fast rooting with some of my succulents. I never have too worry about muddy potts anymore, or muddy floors due to overwatering. With a soiless mixture, they drain out very fast and I water till water flows out the bottom.

I will never use MiracleGro's cactus soil again. The stuff got wet and stayed wet. It was hard to water the plants during winter knowing it'd stay wet for so long. I was forced to re-pot them all this year after that.

Noki,
that particular mix of ingredients sounds good.
However, even when the ingredients are appropriate, you'll often find an excess amount of fine particulate.
I would screen the bagged bonsai mix to remove the bark dust and any turface particles under 1/16 of an inch.

Josh

Avoid Faffard at all cost. I bought a bag because my regular soil wasn't available, and it was terrible for succulents.

Fafard makes lots of different mixes. Some of them are probably not much better than Miracle Gro. But their heavyweight mixes are considerably better. Their "nursery mix" in particular contains only 25% peat, and is one of the only bagged soils I would actually consider using for annuals. All of my succulents, however, get a gritty mix with no peat.

I have stopped using mixes where the fraction of peat is above 10% of it too.

My mixes are gritty in nature, the kind Josh and others use and many use containing no peat at all. Plants are thriving for the first time since I too gave up all bagged mixes. I do though like 'Farfard' for my annuals and certain other container plants too, especially the 'Nursery' mix.
If ones get desperate and can't seem to find any bagged mixes at all with such a small fraction of desired peat, I just tell them to sift the peat out leaving them with mostly bark and perlite which will allow them to add any other in-organic material.

Mike