Here is a side-by-side comparison of a succulent in gritty mix versus a commercial succulent and cactus soil that shows pretty dramatically how well succulents thrive in gritty mix. The plants that are thriving in the gritty mix here are actually transplanted limbs from the pot that has the less healthy plants. So genetically they are identical, and gritty mix fully recovered the plant.

The first photo below shows the plants in gritty mix. The second photo shows a side-by-side comparison of gritty mix versus the commercial soil, which over time has become pretty compacted.

There are a couple of things that are very noticeable looking at the plants:

1) The gritty mix plants are covered with growth on every part of their stems. On the plant in commercial soil, the growth on the bottoms of the stems falls off, and the stems actually start to die near their bases.

2) The growth on every part of the stem for gritty mix is green and healthy-looking. If you look at the plant in commercial soil, the farther you get from the tip of each stem, the more brown the growth becomes, until finally growth cannot be supported and you have the bare stem.

I had the gritty mix plant in its container about a year, and the commercial soil pot is about two years old. One thing I will say is that the gritty mix plants were not fertilized until about two months ago, so I probably held back their growth dramatically. As soon as I added fertilizer to the gritty mix plants, I saw a growth spurt start about two weeks later.

Even though the gritty mix plant was not growing faster, what you can say clearly is that every bit of growth of the gritty mix plant looked healthier...dramatically healthier.

So I have become a big fan of structured soils. I am in the process of trying variations on the structured soil idea with other types of plants.