I must say, I can't think of any kind of potting mix or soil that won't dry eventually if not watered, but sometimes in cool , gloomy weather , with little air circulation etc. etc. indoors, it may take weeks for even small containers to dry out much. If it's a very heavy organic mix with little sand or perlite etc. added to lighten the mix and increase drainage, that can really slow things down. Also consider , if the container has drain holes, and without them it may take many weeks for the soil to dry? I sometimes find that some newly potted pots can take over a week or even longer to dry much, but if it's not overly cool in the location where they're growing and the mix isn't too heavy , most plants will survive. On the other hand I have a case now, or not finding my regular potting mix , and having substituted a new one called "Miracle-Gro" Organic mix, which seemed to have no almmendments to help with the drainage, and in a large pot, took weeks to dry much. So far my treasured palm looks ok, but I do fear problems down the road.

The word of the day is "Let the buyer beware" . How many here would call someone and say "I want a new car. Get me one and I will pay you what you want"? Why do we do that with soil? So often we see here someone bought some soil and it was not what they wanted, or expected, because they relied on the seller to give them what they wanted and that happens seldom. Someone wanting to purchase soil needs to determine what they want and go and look for it., same as buying that car. Do not rely on someone's description of soil as "topsoil" (a meaningless term), or "garden soil" (also meaningless), but go and look at what is being sold. Look at the soil, smell the soil, feel the soil, ask for a one cup sample of the soil for testing as described in "Soil test for organic matter" above. A good soil mix for a garden is one with about 45 percent sand, 25 percent silt, 25 percent clay and 5 percent organic matter, soil some maintain is improbable to get. If we all demand that mix it will become available if those selling soil want to stay in business. If we, as buyers, demand quality we will get it. kimmq is kimmsr

Thanks everyone for all of your responses! robinswfl, back when you did use the 1-1-1, how often on average did you water your plants say in the summer? Stush, my understanding of the root biology is improving, especially after your description. I know cacti and succulents (sansevierias included) evolved to live in areas that underwent prolonged drought, and that their roots are designed to tolerate dryness more than other species, hence why, as you pointed out, that they are so susceptible to overwatering compared to plants that evolved to grow under more standard less extreme conditions. My question though is about although they will tolerate dryness, is it ideal? Example: I don't water a snake plant for 4 weeks. It will survive. The foliage above the ground will still be green, but did that come at the expense of some of the root ball? Did the outer 1/3 of the root system die off as part of a survival mechanism? If that is the case, that's not how I'd like to be treating my plants. (but I don't know if it is the case or not) I'm trying to have the most robust root system as possible, and right now I don't know the proper watering regimen to obtain it. I have many plants with very robust root systems, but I feel like it's been mostly luck up to this point. re: the solid gold. I guess to say I'm "growing it" is a bit generous. I ordered a standard golden hahnii off of a seller on Etsy, because it was much greener than the one I have, and I wanted a greener golden. BUT when I received the plant, the seller mistakenly sent a solid gold! Blessing and a curse, I guess, since the plant is rare, but also harder to take care of. This was around a month ago, and it's still alive, but it had alot of stored energy from the nursery (it had 2 pups on arrival), so there's a good chance it's only doing well due to the stored energy. Time will tell if I'm actually giving it enough light to survive. Here it is in my 1-1-1 mix on a east facing windowsill. It's next to a pilea pepperoni and a two pots of pilea glauca. Jon, I've also noticed that even when the 1-1-1 looks dry, beyond the top 2 inches, it's still a bit moist, and that's relieving to hear. All I'm really focused on is maintaining the MINIMUM amount of moisture for the root system to thrive, and it seems there is a enough residual moisture for the roots to survive for even a week after watering the 1-1-1.

Mike has a great point too. I had 3 trees that all pushed new growth in the same week during the summer. Around this time they started pushing growth again but one of the trees didn’t. I waited a couple weeks to see if maybe it was just slower but still had no new growth at all. You’d think there was nothing wrong with the tree though because no leaves were turning color or dropping and it looked perfectly fine but I bare rooted it last week anyway out of suspicion. I found alot of roots rotting along the outer portions of the mix and some young inner roots beginning to rot in the middle. If I waited until seeing signs of decline on the outer appearance, even more roots would’ve been lost by then. In the end it was better that I acted earlier before waiting it out. Even if you end up waiting, the tree can still recover but the worse off it is the longer the recovery time will be