I use commerical off the shelf potting mix not potting soil but uou of course can mix your own. I know some people toss in a hand full of alpha pellets on top. You did not say what you feed your roses but I started with a new product this year; Peter Beales Natural Rose Care line. The good thing about this product is that it has other things in it that will help improve the soil.

First I would like to quote some lyrics- Everybody's Free (to Wear Sunscreen) by Baz Luhrmann "Be careful whose advice you buy but be patient with those who supply it Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past From the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts And recycling it for more than it's worth" This next bit is my opinion only and requires your patients to get through. I only offer it because it seems to be working well for me so far and I wish for all to have the success I seem to be having with it. I will post a couple of pictures at the end to show you what I mean. I did a lot of research about potting media and amendments. Last summer was my first summer getting into hostas and growing them in pots. I started by making my own mix using pea gravel, mother earth and sand. Seemed to be working well, other than the very heavy pots, especially when they were wet and the fact that while I was repotting using my new and improved media I found the bricks I had been creating with the old mix in the bottom of the pots. I read somewhere that if the pot is full to the bottom and there are holes in the bottom of the pot and it is touching the ground, then the earth will act like a wick to pull excess water out of the pot. Water will always find the easiest route to travel, so once it has created it's own channel in the pot, down the sides, it will be hard to get the pot completely saturated. As I was repotting, though, I found enough earth worms in the pots that I could have fished for a week. Although this is not for everyone and there are many paths to get to the same end, this is how I have been doing it this year. It requires the use of a chipper/shredder, a cement mixer and a cheap plastic lemonade pitcher. I did a massive amount of repotting this spring, so I bought in bulk to reduce my costs. I ended up creating my mix for right at $2.86 a cubic foot and have made over 12 cubic feet of mix so far. I buy southern pine nuggets at Lowe's, comes 3 cubic feet in a bag. Perlite-4 cubic foot bags, peat-2.8 cubic foot bags. Greensand-36 lb bags, Alfalfa meal-50 lb bags and Bio-Tone-25 lb bags. I run the bark through the chipper and end up with fines and small chips. I next mix 5 gallons of bark fines with 2 pitchers of perlite and 2 pitchers of peat. The next part is my own special sauce. I add 1/2 cup of Bio-Tone, 1 cup of Greensand and 1-1/2 cup of alfalfa meal to every cubic foot of mix. Alfalfa meal has triaconatol, which is a fatty acid growth stimulant. I read somewhere that it may increase the possibilities of sports and the worms love the stuff. I get mine at the local Co-Op, it is sold as a livestock feed. Bio-Tone contains Mycorrhiza which become symbiotic with the roots and helps the plants in their uptake of nutrients and the creation of fine roots. Greensand contains many micronutrients not found in most fertilizers. I also use a little sprinkling of Osmocote on top after potting, although it may not be necessary. I am going around now and adding a ring of my special sauce with a layer of compost on top to all of the ones I have in the ground. I just pummel the same ratios of amendments into a powder. Now for the pudding. Here is a seedling that I repotted a week or two ago. I started my seedlings on January 3rd of this year and they were growing in 5 ounce cups using this mix for about 2 months at the time of this picture. This is what they all looked like: Also, here is what it looks like inside my mini greenhouse today. Most of these are from last year after I repotted this spring. The leaf damage on the Fire Island liners in the middle is due to them getting too cold one night before I added heat to the mini greenhouse. They were the only ones that suffered and it only got down to the mid 40s.

The ratio we use at our nursery for repotting shrubs is 3/4 potting soil to 1/4 pine bark (medium size chunks or smaller).

Many thanks to everyone for your contributions and experiences. I got some pine mulch and put the 'fines' in the bottom. I bought two bags of the Miracle Grow blend for Cactus, Palms & Citrus. It is VERY light. I think everyone gave great advice. Going to try this and see how it GROWS. We grew them outside in the ground in California, but I was just a kid. Mother and Grannie just stuck them in the ground. As far as I know they never did anything else except "drip" water them with gray water the first season. After that, they were on their own. Our date palms were gigantic and the dates were yummy. There were several other varieties, but I don't know what the others were. I do recall that Grannie sprayed them with the hose from time to time to wash off the dust. They loved it. Having palms in the house makes me feel like I am home again. (Oh...those childhood memories). As for the size of the new pot, I got an emerald green ceramic Lotus pot and put it on a black wrought iron plant dolly with a clear plastic drip tray underneath. That will make it handy for moving when I clean the floors or rearrange things. The pot is about 4 inches bigger around in diameter, and in depth, it's about 1/3 deeper than the container it came in, so I think it is "joosta" - just right for the pot upgrade. The color is beautiful with the green palm fronds. One thing I did forget to ask, though. Should I cover the top of the soil with a little bit of the bark fines or the potting mix or both? I don't want to suffocate it since I know they need to breathe, but it does look a bit exposed on the surface. Thanks for your help, Palm lovers. ~Annie