Hey Carter! I'm currently living in Gainesville, FL as well and will be here until the end of May/first week of June. I mainly grow Dorstenias, Euphorbias, Pseudolithos, Stapeliads, and SA bulbs, so I use both organic and non-organic soils in the same climate as you!! :-) for organic soils, I use a mix I borrowed from Mike and Maureen Massara,who run Out of Africa in Naples: 40-60% coco coir that I got at the local hydroponics store, 20-30% perlite, 10-20% vermiculite, 10-20% washed and rinsed grit (akasha rough sand from the Archer Lowes), and at least 10% horticultural grade diatomaceous earth, up to 20% on very pest-prone plants. DE is a natural wide-spectrum insecticide that will take care of your mealies in the soil. If you see mealies above the soil still, mist your plants with a dilute H2O2 solution, wait 1-2 minutes, mist with RO H2O, and pat dry with paper towels or q-tips. If you pot with this mix in terra cotta pots that have been thoroughly soaked in filtered H2O, plants should be very hard to kill from rot. All my plants in this mix or a variation thereof seem to dry out within 3-5 days, but the soil is never water-logged.

For inorganic, I use a mixture of Turface, scoria, perlite, DE, vermiculite, and grit. It's about 30% turface, 30% scoria, 20% perlite, 10% grit, 5% DE, and 5% vermiculite. Besides a single piece of a P. Cubiformis (which got muddy sprinkler water on it, so it wasn't the result of the mix!!!), I haven't had a problem with this mix yet, but all the species I have in this mix are slow growers, so time will tell!!

With both mixes, I bottom water and fertilize with watering, no fertilizer in the soil at all. Make sure to fertilize with trace minerals as well!! Hope this helps some :-)

Hi Ben! Thanks for responding. I know Archer Lowes well but have only found play sand outside and masonry sand on the Contractors side. Where's akasha rough? That'll be awesome to know they had something useful for my difficult plant collection. I know DE but completely forgot about the potential of mixing it WITH the mix. I assume you had to order the Turface. If you bought that locally, I'd sure like to know where.

A couple of quick questions:

How do you filter the water and why?

What's RO H2O?

How do you bottom water?

What are you feeding them?

I'm delighted to know you live in town, but a little disappointed you're leaving so soon. On the flip side it's good to know you're only a click away. See you around the site and good luck at your new location.

"DE is a natural wide-spectrum insecticide that will take care of your mealies in the soil."

DE works as an insecticide by absorbing the oils that protect insects from desiccation. In order to be useful as an insecticide, DE should be dry, uncalcined, and have a particle size measured in microns (i.e. powder). The calcined DE we use as a soil ingredient lacks these properties. Also, the moisture present in the soil would protect insects from desiccation. Calcined DE still makes a good soil ingredient, but don't count on it to stop insects.

Carter, I live on the opposite side of the country, but gritty mix should not have any compost, potting soil, or other fine material added to it. These fine particles simply fill in the pore spaces created by the larger particles, and increase the likelihood of root death and rot. Also, you can adjust the water retention by varying the proportion of Turface/Soil Perfector and gravel if you find that it's staying wet too long.

And you can check the Turface website for distributors. That's how I found mine. Just make sure you get Turface MVP and not one of the products with a smaller particle size.

http://www.turface.com/distributors

-Chris

penfold2, the DE I refer to is the powdery stuff used as pesticides; we have it available locally. I have added it to all my soils and all plants have done remarkably well, both in gritty and nongritty mixes. Additionally, many rarer Asclepiads species appreciate a sizable amount of finer sized particulate material in their soil (I have a P. cubiformis thriving in inorganic soil with a large fine component), especially those that develop finer root systems. Many succulent species that appreciate drying out between waterings do benefit from the DE, as when it dries out it dessicates any insect life in the soil.

Unfortunately I don't get my Turface locally; there's no suppliers in the Gainesville area. My parents live in Lakeland so I get mine from Harrell's Nursery when I go to see them. Penfold2 posted the link I was going to put haha.

the akasha rough sand is out by the orchid potting mix stuff in the garden section, on the wall of the building to the left of the garden section entrance. I rinse it to get rid of any unnecessary salts.

I filter water to simulate rainwater, which is filtered via evaporation and much purer than Florida tapwater. Additionally, FL tap water has relatively high concentrations of Fluoride, Chloride, and iron, as well as other metal acids as a result of a high water table and limestone aquifer. Sensitive plants can die from toxicity or get stunted growth I suppose. I just do it to be on the safe side.

When treating plants/doing surgery, always use pure or sterilized things. Reverse osmosis water (RO H2O) or deionized water are two types of highly pure water that I use after hydrogen peroxide to prevent any H2O2-related damage. Because it's highly pure there should be less chance of infection, and since there's fewer heavy metals or acids, less possibility for chemical damage as well.

Bottom watering with fertilizer involves diluting standard cactus fertilizer in a larger tupperware with water and submerging pots to ~75-80% the height of the soil. The soil will soak up water via capillary motion. Once the soil is soaked, put the pot back where it normally goes to get sun and drip dry. I give mine regular miracle grow cactus fertilizer and superthrive. Superthrive is a special treat, once at flowering onset and once at growth onset. U can get it at lowes too.

And same here!!! I don't know anyone else here who grows cacti and succulents. But I will still be on the web, here!! And thanks!! :-)

Oops, I assumed you were talking about the white chunks of diatomite I've found in OOA's mix. I still have a hard time believing that you could maintain enough dry DE powder in the soil to combat insects without negatively affecting root growth. I use Imidacloprid to handle insects, but I understand that some people are opposed to that.

As for fine material in soils, I know there are plenty of people who believe that fine rooted plants require fine soil, but I've never found a plant that didn't take to a gritty mix. My old Pseudolithos cubiformis grew for several years with no fine material until it rotted one winter.

I'm currently growing several more from seed with no fine material. Admittedly, there are plenty of genera that I have not grown, but I have to wonder whether any species truly benefit from fine soil, or if this is just a long-standing myth.

-Chris

I can totally understand the confusion!! I actually started out looking for that form of DE, but could only find the powder format first. Most of my plants seem to retain the DE rather well. I have a few older cacti where I have added more to the soil (below a top layer of scoria) when I water, and because of the small size it sinks into the soil with successive waterings. In my organic mixes, the powdered DE stays much easier, and acts as a soil dryness indicator for me as well. I've always been afraid of handling pesticides, especially around rarer species.

Stapeliads that maintain a "jumping stem" growth form in culture need finer soils a lot of the time. For instance, I recently purchased a Stapelianthus madagascariensis that needs fine soil around the fine, small roots it grows at its various rooting points. Typical large particle gritty soils will dry out its roots and kill it. In my opinion, the trick to having a good finer gritty mix is maintaining a diverse particle size range. For instance, the finer mix version I use still has 60-80 percent larger particle sizes that are traditionally found in gritty mixes.

The fatter Pseudolithos species arent that picky about growing media in my experience. As long as 70-80% of the media is porous lava material of some kind, the rest can be almost anything that isn't too rich or wet. I have used finer inorganics, DE, coir, and even mechanically minced/small particle sphagnum peat moss, and the only rot I have encountered so far has been from errant sprinkler water kicking normal topsoil mud onto a part of one of my cubiformis plants, but that was it. And the main body of that plant was unharmed and continues to thrive in ~40% fine, gritty soil. However, I do live in Florida, which has the highest average UV index in the US as well intense heat and humidity for 6 or 8 months out of the year, compared to most other US states. For instance, it consistently hits 90 to 100 here with 100% humidity from May to September. The more south you go in FL, the larger this range gets. In my hometown 150 miles further south, it's very hot and humid from about March to the end of September. I also live in an area with great wind exposure and by a lake, so I have a constant humid breeze. As such, I haven't had a problem with drying out due to clogged soil pores or lower levels of absorbent material, but rotting due to standing water in fine mix has been a concern of mine. However, maintaining a diverse particle size range helps alleviate this problem by maintaining excellent drainage.

And I take that back about there being no Turface distributor in Gainesville. There's a John Deer Landscape in North Gainesville that I'm going to tomorrow. I will check it out and report back to you :-)

The Gainesville John Deere Landscapers store sells Turface All Sport, 50 lbs for 22$. They're located at 2320 NW 71st Pl, Gainesville, FL 32653. I was just there and bought some Turface. They have a LOT so don't worry about rushing over there :-) it's really far out though, like past the airport. So get ready for a drive, hahaha :-P

Thank you both for all the information. I'll probably head out there next week or so. I'll continue to experiment and document my results. Thanks again.

Chris - thank you for posting that link! I have been play $10 for 2 quarts of turface from Amazon. I just couldnt find it in my area. I followed that link you posted and there is a John Deere location about 20minutes from me!!! Wooo Hoooo!!!

Regarding y'alls conversation about DE. I was thinking about geting that and mixing a little in with my gritty mix. But from what you are saying it is better to use a imidacloprid? And for that you just get a general insecticide with it in it, right?

ps. nice thread! I've learned quite a bit from it!

deva
Do you have some infestation that you need to use imidacloprid? I never used it, so I wonder what you want to use it for (as per your post above: "Regarding y'alls conversation about DE. I was thinking about geting
that and mixing a little in with my gritty mix. But from what you are
saying it is better to use a imidacloprid? And for that you just get a
general insecticide with it in it, right?)

Are you suggesting to mix it with the soil?

Rina

no. I have one on my campus that is struggling with a brown scale infestation. I used imidaclorprid on it before and thought it was done but some survived. I was badly infested. So, I was debating on which one to use.

I dont have any issues with my personal plants. I am on a 3rd floow balcony so I assume that is helpful to prevent infestations. Just a guess since I have never had any issues

Excuse me if I am off the mark Carter, but it is the question I would ask myself if I had been doing what you have. The insect issue aside, could you be spending a lot of experimentation finding the soil mix that agrees with your watering practices rather than adjusting your watering to the soil? I ask, b/c most succulents aren't super picky about the soil, just picky about how wet the roots are. People are successful using regular potting soil- they just wait a long time between watering. I switched to a #2 chicken grit (1/4" granite) and pine bark fines in equal measure, and had a lot of leaf dessication until I figured out I needed to water more often. I would pick a mix that experienced folks say works(and of course fits budget/availability), then monitor the watering and see how less watering overall goes.

The effectiveness of powdered DE as an insecticide when mixed in soil is unknown. Personally, I have a hard time believing it does any significant good when used this way, but some people believe it does. I doubt it would do any good in combating an existing scale problem, since the scale most likely feeds and reproduces right on the plant, never touching the soil. Imidacloprid is a systemic insecticide that works very well on scale IME. Many people use Bayer products with 1.47% Imidacloprid (read the fine print on the label) at 2 Tbs per gallon of water thoroughly watered into the soil. I used that very successfully in the past, but recently switched to a much more concentrated, powdered product (Adonis 75 WSP). It goes a lot further, but needs to be measured with a gram scale.

-Chris