If you are up to some reading, you may find this thread interesting:
click here to read about container soils

sounds like your container soil contains too much peat

ps: kalanchoe is a succulent not cacti...

Wowwww that link was very informative! Thanks rina for sharing it. In the discussion, it says peat retains too much moisture but in my situation it is the opposite. But like you said, I have read somewhere that peat based soils repel water. I'm confused now.

Yes, I'm sorry kalanchoe is a succulent which I cant water often.

Nil, I will try your suggestion. I don't want to buy new soil and transplant everything again. May be I can do that next year. I'm thinking of making my own potting mix next year. I also read the thread about reusing potting mix, some say ok some say to compost. I do container gardening on a concrete patio and I do not have any space to dump this soil or to start a compost pile. I hate to do it but I just have to trash it. If someone has a better suggestion please let me know. Thanks!

Peat has the unfortunate properties of retaining too much water- until it dries out, at which point it becomes hydrophobic. So both things are true. Let me just tell you this. I have made my own mixes in the past (having noticed bagged potting soils are never good). Then last year I said "to heck with it, it's too much trouble, I'm just using potting soil with a little extra perlite." (I tried several, and the FoxFarm Ocean Forest was one of them.) Well this year, I'm back to mixing my own because the results were so poor. And the results get worse every year you use the potting soil.

I gave my old soil to a low-income neighbor who was grateful to get it, although I advised her to try mixing something in to improve drainage.

I am trying something new. Last year I also grew bag gardens and was very impressed with certain bags of soil I used to grow in. That was Garnder and Bloome "Planting Mix." It's for filling raised beds. ("Harvest Supreme" by same mfg. is also very similar, first ingredient pine fines.) I noticed this year it's pretty much the 5:1:1 mix without the perlite, and it drains very well and does not remain muddy. I decided to try mixing perlite into it as a way to shortcut or make an "easy" way to make the 5:1:1 - although I'm sure it's not ideal. It will probably work better than the potting soil though - so that's an improvement, and I may just call it good enough!

Oh and just FYI, warmer water hydrates peat much better. Don't cook your plants, but you could try soaking in a large pot with 80 degree water rather than 50.

Jennifer, that bagged soil you mentioned sounds good, obviously because of bark in it. I think it will be very good if you add perlite as you considering.
And I have same experience with peat - the only way to wet it fast & thoroughly is with warm water; if in bag (no plants) use hot water.

patio
peat does retain too much water, but once it dries out it gets very difficult to re-wet.
You may find yourself in similar situation if you are using only existing (peaty) soil. It is difficult to keep it moist "just right". If you can't get new potting mix, get - if you can - a bag of perlite and mix it generously with the existing soil, it would be less likely to dry out to a 'rock'. I would add easily 50%. Don't know how many plants you have, but that could be least expensive way of improving drainage, without throwing out the soil. (And, btw, chemicals will not improve it-not sure if that's what you meant.)
Rina

Thanks Jennifer! Your reply has been very helpful to me. This year I will just work around with what I have by soaking the pot in warm water when needed. Glad you found something that works better than regular potting soils. I checked Gardner &Bloome's entire product line and yes the Harvest Supreme seems like a good product but it doesn't contain peat moss which I think is one of the parts in 5:1:1. I'm not much inclined to having peat moss in the mix after my bad experience. LOL!

I might consider adding coconut coir and vermiculite or perlite to Harvest Supreme next year. Also I want to point out that it doesn't specify pine barks but says bark fines. As long as it works I'm not very particular but I wanted to provide the right information. I mostly grow annuals and will have to replace the potting medium after a couple of seasons, anyways.

I was at first interested in trying 5:1:1 but was soon discouraged knowing that the ingredients are so hard to find. I do not have a truck to haul or the space to store all these big bags of rare ingredients and don't have the time or energy to go through the process of screening the pine bark fines. I only have 6 or 7 pots and it's not worth going through all the trouble for the amount of potting medium that I'm going to use. So G&B might be a better option for someone like me. Thanks again!

Rina, that makes sense. I'm reusing my peat based potting mix from last year which could be adding to my situation. If only I had known, oh well! Will mixing perlite improve water absorption? I do not have a problem with drainage. It drains way too fast before the soil is moistened all the way to the bottom. I don't have that many plants so I can buy a bag of perlite and mix with existing soil if that will help. And yes, I was referring to chemical surface emollients and humectants which help water absorption and retention.

Should I treat the kalanchoe the same way? It needs a fast draining soil but with the soil being hydrophobic, I want the soil to absorb the water first before it drains away so the roots have a chance to take up the water and the nutrients.

patio_
But you have 'wrong kind of fast drainage'.
Water is just draining out - imagine it sliding over dry chunk of peat, without soil getting moist & plant is dying of thirst.

If you have only few plants, maybe you can afford reptibark. It is too expensive in large amounts. Or buy bark for bonsai, it comes in few sizes.
But even adding generous amount of perlite will help, it will 'occupy' space between soil particles. (I am using Al's word here - it is all explained much better in above mentioned thread).
I am not familiar with the soil mentioned, but don't worry if it doesn't contain peat - there is probably enough 'fine bark-dust', so just add perlite.

I have many succulents, and grow them in mix of perlite, chicken grit & turface. Including kalanchoe.

Hi rina and patio_garden - this is Jennifer from above. I realized I could still use my old Gardenweb handle wormgirl. (I am kind of attached to it after 10 years!)

Thanks for the correction, patio_garden - I was going from memory. I haven't tried the Harvest Supreme yet - just the Planting Mix, which does contain some peat. One of the local garden centers recommends a 50/50 mix of both products when filling raised beds. One concern about the Harvest Supreme is it may contain a high proportion of fine particles. I may do some experiments later in the season. I will report back later with my results. I do know from last season's bag garden drainage never became a problem!

rina_ - very beautiful Kalanchoe! I might try your succulent mix. Would you grow Jade plants in that mix or would they prefer a little organic matter such as in the gritty mix?

Rina those Kalanchoes look beautiful and happy. I will look for reptibark in the local pet store. Is the particle size good to use straight out of the bag? If I can't get my hands on reptibark, do you have a brand name or store where I can look for bark for bonsai? I checked homedepot and lowes websites but couldn't find any related product.

About the kalanchoes, I got them from my neighbor as long leggy plants. It's still blooming and I think it will until the end of spring, so I don't know if this is a good time to cut them back. I hate to cut the pretty blooms and see them not grow again. Should I just leave them leggy this season and cut them back in summer
once they are done blooming for a bushier growth? There aren't any leaves on the lower half of the plant. This picture might probably give you a better idea.

Jennifer, wormgirl is a nice name for a garden forum :) Just curious, did you use the planting mix in pots also or just bags? It doesn't specify that it's for pots probably because of the lack of perlite. Is bag gardening different from container gardening as far as drainage is concerned? Please let us know how your experiments turn out. Good luck!

I mentioned reptibark since it is easy to get, pretty good size most of the time, clean and no 'fines'. It is much more pricy, but if you have only few plants it's not too bad. I can't recomend other product, I am in Canada and the names are different. I haven't been able to get really good bark, most is very large, or smaller (still too large) with way too much of sapwood.
Kalanchoes get leggy, so no surprise there. It was recently mentioned in one of threads too -click here for leggy kalanchoe-

(don't put any stones on the bottom of the pot...)

I would wait until blooms are finished and then prune/trim. They grow very easily from the leaves.

I also rooted a part of stem, it had no leaves at all, I just tried & it grew (leaves & roots). Here is photo of cutting (all leaves are new growth) & new plant year later:

It's amazing to see roots coming out of nothing but a leaf! Thank you for the pictures and for the pointer about adding pebbles. Your leaves are in a beautiful spiral. Now I feel more confident trimming them back. And oh it just occurred to me why the white one is sprouting new shoots at the bottom. That's where I took my other white ones from!! When I got the kalanchoes, the white one was one giant octopus. I separated it out into 3 pots to make it more manageable. But I was never sure that the cuttings would make it this far. My neighbor had these kalanchoes under a huge rose plant (much like a small tree) and may be they were looking for light with that leggy growth and spaced out leaves. I currently have them out in the open patio where it gets an hour of direct morning sun and then shade for the rest of the day. My patio gets moving sun but still remains very bright although it gets shaded by the side walls and trees. Would my kalanchoes do ok with this amount of light? It gets too hot here in the summer and I read not to put them in direct sun for more than 2 hrs.

How did you root the steam cutting? Does it root by itself when you leave it out in the air with no soil or water? From the picture, it looks like the stem cutting with new leaves is not in a pot. In the other link they suggest letting the leaf or stem cutting callous over before putting it in moist soil. I set aside the stem cuttings I made yesterday to callous over. Should I wait to see roots before potting them up? Also I think this new plant need not go through the resting period (2 weeks of 14 hrs darkness) in fall. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I would like to give my friend the right information so she doesn't kill the plant. I'm sure she is as clueless as I am with succulents LOL!!

The cutting I showed was a piece of thicker stem, leafless. First I was to discard it (I have many kalanchoe plants), but then decided to see if it will grow. I let it callus (maybe a day?), then just stuck into a pot with others. Photo was taken when I took it up to plant in it's own pot - it grew these leaves by then. I don't remember how long it took. They need good light, but you are right about not keeping them in strong sun whole day, especially hot noon sun.
They will get somehow leggy as they get older, here is a photo of another (older) kalanchoe - you can see that stems are getting longer and lower leaves eventually fall off. In good light, the rest of leaves will grow closer together.

I grow a lot of orchids and dirt plants. I soak bark before using. I never use it dry out of the bag. Sometimes I soak the bark in buckets of water in the sun to warm it for days/week. I use sphagnum moss in my orchid mixes and also soak that.

If the bark or peat is not absorbing water (which happens with sphagnum as well as regular peat) I stick the pot in a bucket of water or at least a deep saucer of water overnight. The moss will wet and act as a wick pulling water up.

Living in Florida, the bark and peat will dry out making it difficult to hydrate unless soaked. My dirt plants are treated the same way although I do not use orchid bark with them because of cost. I buy a brand called, Timberland from Walmart and soak that in buckets and mix it with Miracles Gro and perlite for all my dirt plants.

I have too many plants to get overly involved with mixes. As long as the mix you use drains, the plants do well. But try soaking your bark and peat first before making your mix.

Jane

Thank you all! The compost mulch seems to help retain the moisture without getting the top few inches too dry and hard to soak new water. My potting soil is doing ok now. It rained last night and that should have soaked the whole mix by now. I will try one or more of the suggestions here. I really appreciate all your help.

One last question, how to treat the new kalanchoe plants from cuttings/leaves so that they rebloom? The cuttings were taken last week, so it is going to take a while for the new plants to grow big to start flowering. Since this winter will be the first blooming season for these cuttings, do they have to go through the resting phase (2 weeks of 14 hrs darkness) in fall like the old plants do?

I can't answer your last question about resting phase of kalanchoes. I never heard about it (doesn't mean much, lol), but I never did that with any plants either - too much hassle for me. They bloom whenever they want...I may 'force' some bulbs, but that's about all.
Rina

>>Just curious, did you use the planting mix in pots also or just bags? It
doesn't specify that it's for pots probably because of the lack of
perlite. Is bag gardening different from container gardening as far as
drainage is concerned? Please let us know how your experiments turn out.
Good luck!

Sorry to be slow in answering your question, rina. On my bags, it actually suggests filling "large planters" with the G&B Planting Mix. As of this season, I'm using it in pots as well, some with perlite and some without. Nothing scientific, but I'll observe and see how things do. So far, things are doing VERY well in it! Nothing seems waterlogged (although that's often a problem in this part of the country in April).

As far as the bags - this is not Smart Pots or anything - it's this type of arrangement (look under "store bought bag garden") Photo of bag garden

You poke the bottom side of the bag full of holes and the ground acts as a wick, so they are surprisingly well-drained. But when I used G&B Topsoil, which was what a book suggested, I had TERRIBLE results. Nothing grew well in it. When I used the Planting Mix, it worked great. My cucumber vines grew 8 feet. Radishes loved it. Peppers loved it. Chard and Mustard loved it!

I might try some self watering containers this year as well and if so I plan to try G&B Potting Mix or maybe the Blue Ribbon Mix which is also designed for pots. I read elsewhere on this site that it's better than other brands.

I thought I’ll post an update to this discussion. I have moved completely away from peat and I make my own coco coir based soil and buy non peat based bagged soil from a local hydroponic store and I’m happy I have done so. I do not suffer with hydrophobic soil for the most part. Occasionally because of my neglect (🙂) soil in certain pots and even in one my raised beds become too dry to take water but it is much much better than having to deal with peat based soil. I have a good amount of compost to keep things moist. I’m still learning about my own garden, plants, soil and the planters I use.

As for my kalanchoes, I figured they seem to love being neglected and I’ve continued to do so past several years and they have been blooming year after year without fail. The only thing I did for them was potting them in orchid and succulent mix a few years back. I have been lazy and not cut them back at the end of the blooming season but they haven’t complained. I do give them a light trim once a year, cut off the dried or leggy parts. The leaves are much tighter now. One of them still likes to grow leggy but all 3 plants are doing well. I think about my neighbor and thank her in my heart for them every year.

What a precious update! And, your kalanchoes are beautiful! Thanks so much for sharing!