I'm sure I'll get yelled at for saying this but, I have a Portulacaria afra and a Portulacaria afra variegata that are in 50% "cactus" soil and 50% perlite. They seem to love it even here in humid, rainy FL.

If you're determined to go with a more gritty mix then anything with pumice should really be sifted and washed. I have no experience with turface so I'll leave that for others to comment on.

I don't sift turface or floor dry I just fill up pond baskets which have tiny holes in them and rinse it very well it gets the dust out and the finest particles. 100 percent turface is probably Ok, I just don't like to use all of one ingredient. The different gravel particles have different properties and I reason that by using a variety, the substrate is more likely to be acceptable to a wide variety of plants.

Oh I just followed your link. I wouldn't buy it for cost reasons. Seems expensive relative to what you could do yourself with minimal effort.

Agreed Todd, it's pretty pricey. That's the cost of convenience I guess. I've seen turface on amazon, in addition to that what else can I easily add to the turface that won't require a ton of prep (sifting or otherwise) or running around to find it. I saw someone mention aquarium gravel in another thread, is that along the lines of what you were thinking?

(btw thanks for the input Nicholas, it's good to have examples where people can grow these in all kinds of soils)

I wouldn't order turface mail order. Its pretty heavy and shipping cost will be more than the material. A 40 lb bag only costs about 12 bucks. Go to their website and try to locate a retailer in your zip code. I buy it at a place called Ewing irrigation. It's a store that sells sprinkler system components mostly to professional installers. Alternatively go to a napa auto parts store and buy floor dry. It's a similar particle instead of calciNed clay it's calciNed diotomaceous earth.

Since you are only getting one plant, and you want to dote on it without spending hours and hours preparing a soil mix, I would go ahead and buy the one from BonsaiJack. It says right on the order form that shipping is FREE. I've used this mix before. It's convenient and works

Do you already have pumice?

Aquarium gravel if usually right size and could be used, even if some suggest that it is too smooth. It is also colored quite often, but that may not be a problem since it is to be used for fish...If you have it handy and don't have time to get other stuff, it would be OK to use. Succulents will do quite well in mix of grit and perlite (very easy to buy). I have many in mixes like that, also in turface+grit, use mostly grit+turface+perlite.

As per above post, if it is only 1 plant, shouldn't be that expensive to buy pre-made.

I don't have anything yet, I figured id consult the experts before spending any money. :) Pumice and turface just came to mind because I read they retained a bit of water past the initial watering time but would still let the roots dry out between watering.

Where do you find are good places to buy your pearlite?

RepotMe also has a good gritty mix ready to go. It contains turface, granite, and small Monterrey pine bark

http://m.repotme.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.repotme.com%2Fpotting-mix%2FGritty-Mix.html&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fm.repotme.com%2Fsite%2Frepotme%2Fsearch#2819

Andrew, don't let them dry out as much as you would other succulents. Port's will drop leaves if they are not consistently watered, especially during the Winter (in my experience).

I have them growing in bark-based mixes, in a bark/perlite/turface mix, and in pure screened Turface. In pure Turface, be sure to water regularly....but also be sure to tilt the container to drain the excess water after a thorough watering.

That's a beautiful plant, I'd love to have something like that sooner or later :)

(and thanks for the watering tips!)

Andrew

Yes, I water it little more often as Josh suggested.

perlite is available in many stores like Home Depot, Lowe's, Wallmart and any garden center-greenhouse. Also in hydroponic stores (not sure if they sell small bags).

I grow mine in pea gravel and turface.

Well, at least we know they can grow well in all kinds of soil! That gives me some hope for not killing the plants right off the bat :)

I've sent a message to a place nearby that says they sell turface and asked if they also sold pea gravel (in an attempt to see if I can at least combine trips). In another thread I noticed people mentioned using "repitbark" in their mix, which seems pretty easily available at pet stores (and online if necessarily).

I'm not ready to commit to a full time sifting operation, but for those who do sift, where did you buy your sifter from?

Thanks again for all the responses, everyone.

Reptibark is expensive, and the majority of the bark is unusable in a mix (too large).

Pea gravel also tends to be quite large (at least in the Western U.S.).....however, a small bag of aquarium gravel could be just right. That's what I used for my first batch of bark, perlite, gravel.

Josh

Reptibark IS expensive, but suitability does depend a bit on what you're making with it and how much you need it. It's a good size for vanilla 5-1-1 out of the bag (though pine bark would be better and when you find a good source, MUCH cheaper...) and it's quite good for al's gritty if screened. 40-60% is 1/8-1/4" (gritty mix sized) in my experience, the remainder can still be used for 5-1-1, there's almost none bigger than 1/2" and most that is bigger than 1/4" skews closer to 1/4" than 1/2". some dust, almost no other fines < 1/8". I've screened a decent amount of it...

The only reason I'm belaboring the point is that while a bit expensive, it still may be the cheapest widely available fir bark - amazon and other places often will ship the 24 quart bag for free, and it can be found in most pet stores (sometimes expensive, but it's right there on the shelf, even in the winter...) so for someone eager to try one or a few small plants and not wanting to spend large effort locating ingredients, it's a nice option for the hardest to find component for many people.

Daniel

I'd much rather purchase a bag of fine-grade "Orchid Mix," and then add a little additional Perlite and/or Potting Mix. If seedling Orchid Bark is available, even better.

Josh

Well, there's always the option of just getting the bark from "bonsai jack" and getting the turface and pearlite (or gravel) locally.

http://www.bonsaijack.com/2-Gallon-Quarter-Inch-Pine-Bark-Fines-Regular_p_21.html

That's still a lot to spend for bark, but it sounds like the bark is the most labor-intensive part so maybe that's one area that's worth spending more to save on the labor and the chore of finding bark that would actually work? Or I could just do a 2-part mix of pearlite (or gravel) and turface and see how that goes....

update--- I did just fine this...
http://www.ohiomulch.com/products/premium-mini-pine-fines-2cf-312

they appear to sell gravel as well.

http://www.ohiomulch.com/collections/packaged-stone

?

In the end volume will be your biggest driver for how much work you want to spend on finding/acquiring/processing raw materials. For example Agway "Pine Bark Mulch" may or may not require screening for 5-1-1 (varies bag to bag) and will always require screening for gritty, but costs $5-10 for 3 cubic feet, or, 22+ gallons. Ditto many other things you may or may not be able to find a reasonable driving distance (if you even have a car) from your location.

It's easy to screen or affordable to buy online or otherwise small amounts of most anything you may use. but once you're thinking about 50 or 100 plants in pots that range from bonsai size to 25 gallons, you'll look at it differently. If you only have a few plants and don't plan to change that, there are a lot more options available to you that may seem unreasonable at higher volumes.

Daniel

For bark, I buy loblolly pine bark mulch and, over my wife's objections, put it in the blender and pulse it a few times and sift out the fines and dust by rinsing them in a net pot or pond basket. Sometimes I do the same thing with pecan shells. Which I think are better than bark but harder to find. It's a little labor intensive.

Some smooth gravel, aquarium or otherwise, is ok. Since it's so smooth it doesn't have as much surface area per unit of volume as the calciNed particles, which makes it less than ideal. Not all aquarium gravels are created equal. Planted aquarium substrate is great for plants but not inexpensive. Regular aquarium gravel is just smooth pebbles. The cheap candy color aquarium is hideous to look at.

Perlite floats, negative for me, but it is lightweight, a plus if you have big container plants.

Pea gravel in addition to being very smooth weighs a ton and a substantial amount in a large clay container can make for a heavy plant, that may only matter if it's a tender plant you might move in and out in winter.

Of all the components mentioned turface and floor dry are IMHO the best. Cheap, not to heavy, very high cation exchange, durable, don't degrade, retain water and oxygen.

If you want a "sifter" (I'd call it a sieve or riddle) try amazon, a bonsai shop, maybe a rock shop, or make your own.

Good luck have fun

Thanks Todd. And just as an update, I just realized an acquaintance has some chicken grit from some project they had been working on, so that's at my disposal.

Make sure it's granite not oyster shells. I've heard oyster shells are very salty

Will do, good to know!

Got a few pounds of granite chicken grit and some napa floor dry. I couldn't get a sifter but I'm shaking them over an extra scrap bit of screen I had laying around to get the smallest stuff out at least... Still no bark, I may try just planting in a mix of the granite and floor dry for now. Hopefully that will be enough for them. The little bundle of portulacaria showed up yesterday, I'm going to break them up and plant the stems individually I think. It's kinda driving me nuts to be putting them in pots but not watering them (I read in a few places, including here, not to water re-planted succulents).

Good for you. That will work as a mix. It will be all white when dry. More important than the small fine gravel is the dust on the floor dry. You can nip a corner of the bag with scissors, open opposite side and run the hose to fill with water let it drain out of tiny hole and repeat. At least that gets the dust out.

And I agree with your not watering a repotted plant is hard! It goes against my instincts too.

Any thoughts on how long I should wait before watering? What I got in the mail was a group of 8 or so shoots that look like they had been put in some potting soil to take root. I'm separating them out, which is certainly tearing some roots, but the roots are really thin and the root ball is still really small (smaller than a half dollar size even when you include the potting soil clinging between the thin roots) so hopefully they won't take too long to heal. Should I just wait 2 weeks or so?

If you're planting in pure grit, you should water the plants in. Otherwise you'll notice massive leaf wrinkling and probable leaf loss.

The advice not to water a succulent in is based on two things: crappy potting mix that holds excess moisture, and damage to roots (which can invite rot).

I would re-pot, water, and then put them on a sunny windowsill.

Josh

I noticed some wrinkling starting on the leaves of one and just went ahead and watered them all. Each stem is in it's own 4" nursery pot (the kind with lots of good-sized holes on the bottom)s i had been putting the pots on various saucers to catch the water that came out of the bottom, but to try to clean up the area I put down a double layer of bounty paper towels and transferred them to that. To my surprise, the paper towel began sucking what seemed like an awful lot of water out of the pots. Since they had stopped drop-draining a while ago I assumed they were pretty fully drained but the paper towel told a different story. So now my question is, should I keep putting the containers on a paper towel or is this pulling too much water out of the soil too quickly?

I water mine (as needed) place them on a catch pan or tray let them set on the tray for a minute or two then replace them to there location.

My mix is mostly pumice composted granite chips and perlite size of pot allows for some frequent watering as I tend to be a little heavy when watering

Don't think you need the paper towel. No container mix will ever drain completely. That last little bit of water has to evaporate or be used by the plant. Gravity will only pull it down to a certain point. You'll see this point referenced as the perched water table.

Very gritty mix will let extra water to drain much faster, which is good. While I think that putting them on paper towel was a good idea (freshly re-potted plants that have been watered in thoroughly) it is not necessary to do every time you water.

You could set the pots on the angle and that will also help draining extra water (one side resting on top of the saucer, or put a pebble under it). Approx. 20-30 min after watering, empty any remaining water from the saucer.

The 'perched water table' should be as low as possible.

Ok, so now I've got them all potted and have been watering them for a couple weeks (i had a few leaves wrinkle and fall off but the first time I watered it that stopped). I'm having a little trouble figuring out watering frequency though... I've got them in 4" or so pots with great drainage and I'm using different mixes just to see how things go in different soils (granite + turface, granite + turface + potting soil, granite+turface + bark fines).

Any thoughts on a rough watering schedule a gritty-type mix in a small pot with tons of little holes in the bottom? I'd like to find just the right mix without over- or under-watering it.

Thanks again for all the help, by the way!

You could use a wooden skewer (or dowel with sharpened end) and stick it deep - at least halfway-or deeper) into the mix. If it comes out dry - time to water. If there are small particles sticking to it, looks wet and/or feels cold when you touch top of your hand (or your cheek), there is still enough moisture. You should also lift a pot every week or few days to feel how heavy or light they are - dryer they are, lighter they become. Start with freshly watered pot and eventually you'll be able to tell this way.

It also depends on temperature they are in (colder it is - water less often); and what kind of container they are in - plastic will take little longer than terracotta.

Got it, thanks!