I find Searles the best I use the Terracotta and tub mix in the huge bag it is a little dearer but it does not dry out like the others do. Cheers....MM.

Here is a link that might be useful: Searles

Isn't it ironical that so much effort has gone to making PMs free draining that water crystals, wetta soil etc have to be added along with coconut peat etc to keep some moisture in the mix? I'm going to trial adding a portion of soil to the larger pots in future.....there's a nice accessible stash of soft red soil left over from a back hoe operation.

All my plants seem to strive in potting mix. On the other hand, they rarely thrive. I have resorted to using the top quality garden mix soil provided by our garden centre. It is made up of sand, soil, trace elements, mushroom compost and old, pulverised cow manure. It is alkaline so suits much of what I grow, but not all. You could get a trailer load made to measure. The main problem of course is weeds.

I use a mixture of red loam and potting mix as I live in such a hot area ,I have done so for years and all my plants thrive Bev

I'll share a tip with you all,mix a little bit of crusher dust through your mix and plants will be greener than you have seen before.It also helps to weigh the pot down a bit and can prevent annoying blowing over.You will probably see this in commercial mixes in the not too distant future.

Thanks for the tip. Can you please tell us where we can get it from Richard? Is it just at the regular soil and sand suppliers?...Cheers, Dee.

Most landscape yards should be able to point you in the right direction. I've seen the results on profesionally grown Gardenias and Murrayas,it makes a real difference.

Thanks for that Richard.....I hope to use rock dust on the paddock in the future. Think a local version is what's known as "Gracemere Granite", a contractor 20 years ago said it would grow good lawn grass and he was right, no fertiliser has been added.

Depending on what I intend to grow I use varying amounts of compost added to the potting mix as none of the mixes seem to have any staying power. Has anyone else noticed the wetting agents migrating to the bottom of the pot?? Not many of my plants enjoy the soggy bottom syndrome! Since moving here I have been using so much "dynamic lifter" both in the garden and in the pots--nothing beats well fed plant.

dear riverstone have you found any problems using dynamic lifter in pots, any build up, stench or stem rotting? thankyou all for your imput into this thread, it has been very helpful. Kind Regards, Will

When I worked for CSIRO we made our own potting mixes and it's dead easy (excuse the Cundellism). I personally think any serious gardener should experiment with making their own mixes as commercial potting mixes are always a compromise on price vs. performance. For the uninitiated here are the basics. 1. Drainage - at least 50% - 70% of your potting mix should be coase sand or something which holds the soil structure open. Most commercial mixes use composted pine bark partly for this purpose, which can tend to be quite acidic and breaks down causing the mix to 'colapse'. Clean sand is the best but you can add perlite or vermiculite if you wish to make a lighter, fluffier mix. 2. Water holding (compost). Well rotted cow manure is excellent, so is organic compost from your own compost heap or purchased. Coconut peat is excellent too, very fiberous and long lasting as well as cheap! Sphagnam moss and peat are excellent too but expensive. Many sources of compost are quite acidic, keep this in mind. 3. Nutrition and pH - You will need to add some nutrition to your mix. Slow release fertilizer granules are excellent, or some dynamic lifter. If you use rotted manure you won't need to add any extra nitrogen. You should add the following. Two tablespoons of dolomite, one tablespoon of gypsum and one teaspoon of lime, per bucket of soil mix. Mix all that well, OR add 4 tablespoons of blood and bone, which contains calcium and magnesium as well as other trace elements. Moisten the mix, depending on how wet the ingedients are and mix mix mix... It's fun experimenting with different mixes, you can buy a cheap pH test kit and adjust the pH yourself to suit. Add lime to raise the pH and Alum to lower the pH. Sorry about the long post.

Thankyou Jamus. That is very informative. When I first started growing indoor plants about 36 years ago when I was newly married, I never bought potting mix. I'm not sure if it even existed then(??) Even if it did I probably couldn't have afforded it. I used to used regular garden soil with home made compost added and it worked well! I'm sure your 'recipe' would be a lot more satisfactory though.....Cheers, Dee.

I am finding increasingly that the regular (well actually the bought mix) garden soil is MORE effective for my needs, than the bought potting mixes. While most of the plants I grow in pots require good to excellent drainage, it is better provided by adding coarse grit in some form - in my case fine white pea gravel or crushed blue stone. I generally put rotted cow manure in the bottom of the pots first. Also I think a big part to success is how the plants are watered - preferably from the bottom, or by immersion. Generally I am potting for short periods of time, up to 1 year. I am a lazy gardener, although I will make up a special mix for certain plants. As Jamus says most of the mixes are quite acidic and I do not wish to be constantly adjusting for that. I often pot bearded irises, and I find that they do quite well in ordinary garden soil, slightly on the heavy side, and for the most part left unwatered. If they are placed so that their roots can grow into the ground they do very well indeed. Ditto for daylilies and roses. I think perhaps too much is made of the need for sharp drainage. Simply being in a pot with good drainage holes allows most plants to drain well. The very light potting mixes need far to much attention to avoid drying out. I should stress that this suits MY needs, and I am not talking about indoor plants. I moved some 2000 pots of plants from my previous garden and kept many of them going for over 2 years before being planted out. They were for the most part grouped together on black plastic and overhead watered every 3 days or so through summer, by hand held hose. Water lovers were placed in plastic trays and icecream containers filled with water every few days. All were grown in a soil based mix with mushroom compost, pea gravel and lime added. My losses were minimal, yet I can't keep indoor or balcony plants alive.

Rose ..... I have to agree with the theory of Gracemere granite it is indeed good for growing lawns , mabe not for pots had not much to do with it in pots Then again the soil here is very good. Gracemere granit is easy to come by. garden_worm

I wonder if this topic is still active.
i was very interested in the comment about blue metal dust and found two excellent links on it.
it looks like an excellent thing to add to potting mixes
Volcanic Basalt dust
http://www.mineralfertiliser.com.au/about.htm
BLUE METAL CRUSHER DUST -

http://www.oliveaustralia.com.au/Olifax_Topics/Crusher_Dust/crusher_dust.html

g'day michaelangelica,

it does have good compaction capabilities as well so not sure how that may work in pots, but i see one page says it is very acid, so they are specifying it for the growing of particular plants.

since quality assurance i find potting mixes all now contain peat moss and maybe too much of it? (would like to find a mix with none), i have just gone through a period of doing a lot of potting up for various plants in our landscape (app 40 large bags of mix in the past 12 months).

and i find they dry out far to quickly especially in these times even though i do some compacting of the mix as i go.

in the past when mixes contained more soil they held water at a more manageable rater. i use searles but realy can't see much difference between the main brands nowadays.

if you find one that doesn't use peat that would be good.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: len's garden page