Thanks. The soil I have is for citrus. It’s well drained soil, but after watering, there’s no water get down to the bottom plate, and it doesn’t seem to dry up, which means its too wet the whole time. I don’t even know what else to do. Yeah, pray! 🙏🏼😄

Yeah, even though something is marketed for a specific plant, doesn’t always work out that way. I’ve learned my lesson there. Maybe add some perlite to your mix. Maybe some bark too. You can also add rocks to the bottom of the pot. I feel like you need both new/better draining soil and a pot with more drainage holes. I added more holes to my plastic pot with a drill. Also, self watering pots aren’t your friend.

Adding rocks to the bottom of a container is a real no no. All that accomplishes is to raise the perched water table higher in the container, making it worse for the tree's root system.

I used rocks at the bottom of my pot followed by a widow screen. This allowed air to flow freely below the roots and screen thus aerating the under side of the perched water table.

Steve

Sorry Steve, using rocks is a bad idea for container plants. Now the perched water table is even higher in your containers.

Oh, dear, I just had a "conversation" about Perlite that didn't end well.

Hold up. You are telling me if I’m using a plastic pot not clay/terracotta I should add more perlite even if using a standard 511 mix?

And my bad on the rock advice. I was tired and figured it was a quick and simple solution for the person who probably has their roots drowning in water at the moment.

"Hold up. You are telling me if I’m using a plastic pot not clay/terracotta I should add more perlite even if using a standard 511 mix?"

Technically, yes. Or if using sealed clay, as I sometimes do. It doesn't breathe at all.

Terracotta is an "earthenware" clay, the simplest and lowest temperature clay. There are five basic types of clay (some say four, which is also acceptable).

Do we really want to get into another war here? Didn't think so. But suffice to say, your clay pot is going to vary. Even by depth of the siding, so larger clay pots breathe less because they have to be wider to hold their own mass.

Suffice to say my fire clay and porcelain clay pots, even unfinished, are not going to breathe like my earthenware clay pot is. Use more Perlite there as well because the grain is finer, the water and air exchange is far less.

And any glazed, painted, or sealed pot (and it's not always obvious) should simply be treated as plastic.

(There's a reason I'm really, really exacting).

This forum and that comment in general reminded me of an argument I got my bf involved in about how many time zones the US has. Apparently you have to be more specific than “the US” is it the continental US or are we including Alaska, Hawaii, etc. Morph, you and my bf would either be best friends or murder each other.

Also, what if I drilled holes on the side of my pot? Lol I have 4? small holes that probably don’t do much of anything but they are there.... (I don’t expect an answer here)

Did you remember the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam and the other protectorates? Because that changes the answer too. And why argue, just look it up, it's a simple fact. A search says six, but that definitely doesn't include the Northern Mariana Island and Guam, which is an unincorporated territory of the US, and is in the Chamorro Time Zone (GMT+10), so I'm calling the "official" online answer incorrect.

The minimum answer is 7 and I'd have to sit down and do the research technically every military base is US soil as any child born there is a US citizen naturally as per the US Constitution and Supreme Court. That includes everything from Terciera in the Azores right through every zone in Europe and into Asia.

So sometimes even "official" sources aren't correct and we have to simply say: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/appeal-to-authority Appeals to Authority don't always work and you do have to listen to sensible arguments.

We'd probably adore each other. Most of my friends and I love doing this kind of thing and generating ever more ridiculous exceptions to every rule until somebody can finally find the reason to throw out the logical point. It can take a while and extend right down to the spin on an electron sometimes...

...around here, quite bluntly, a few people are more interested in winning their arguments and would rather detonate and throw insults when they don't.

I believe his answer was 7. I also think he brought up military bases too. He is a private pilot and works in finance so you could imagine his personality type. He is just beginning the stages of building his own plane now too. I support it because I’m cool & nice but also because I know it’s going to take him years to finish. I wasn’t aware until I met him but all men into aviation are huge nerds. I was dooped, I thought he was cool😂

"Also, what if I drilled holes on the side of my pot? Lol I have 4? small holes that probably don’t do much of anything but they are there.... (I don’t expect an answer here)"

Surface area versus volume. They really don't do much, unfortunately. If you could drill 100,000 holes of barely-visible size, that would help.

Shh. Even earthenware clays aren't all that breezy either, particularly in larger size; find a pot, fill it with water, put the top on. Take a second plastic jug and do the same. Check in a week, not that much water will actually escape via wicking action, although some will.

Small pots? Sure, the surface area is very high to small volume. A 2" clay pot vs. a 2" plastic pot will have a noticeable difference.

Large pots? Not so much. An 8" clay pot has to be thicker sided, so less wicking to begin with, and the volume is much higher to a surface area that only increased by the square, not the cube. It's not going to show nearly the same advantage.

12", 20"? Use plastic, it's lighter to begin with. Clay will be thick-walled, won't wick much anyway, and have little enough advantage that you might as well take advantage of plastic's less-breakable and lighter nature.

"I wasn’t aware until I met him but all men into aviation are huge nerds. I was dooped, I thought he was cool😂"

Oh, all men are huge nerds. In one way or another, we all do it. I paint, I make things out of clay, plastic, LEDs, other lighting sources. Seriously, gigantic art nerd here.

Fortunately, I escaped the finance thing. I can balance my checkbook. I merely choose not to. This is what I tell myself, at least.

He true passion is music. If it wasn’t a family business I believe he would have gone into music copyright law. Shame but oh well, such is life. I used to love to paint and should really get back into that. Unfortunately I spend all my time studying and worrying about my plant babies. Chicago has an “immersive Van Gogh” exhibit going on I plan on attending as my first outing since covid hit. Not the biggest fan but the way they have it set up is pretty cool and seems worth checking out.

Grace, hi. I was directing the info to Bigjawie.

Your mix is better than most. In fact, if using the 5.1.1 you prevent issues like Bigjawie has.

Perlite is the most basic ingredient easily acquired by most growers almost anywhere. What ever arguments there are for perlite , the fact remains that is if that was all I had access to to add to my mixes, I would. It's better than seeing my plants die from lack of oxygen to the root zone due to poor untreated fine heavy salt and water retentive mixes.

I personally don't like using it as much as I like using pumice or some other ingredient that opens any peaty mix. If that is all I has access to, then you bet I'd use it. Even more small bark like repti-bark or bark fines can be just as good for those not able to make their own 5.1.1 mix and stuck with bagged mixes that hold way to much water far too long.

If you found your 5.1.1 mix was still holding too much water, then either it was mixed wrong, the wrong sizes were used, one did not use decomposed bark. You can add more perlite or bark to make it dry out faster, or soak the smaller un composted bark like repi-bark for a few days so that the finer particles like peat adhere and is evenly distributed rather than slide past the larger particles and sink towards the bottom of the containers making the bottom area stay wet much longer than the occupied root ball area and above.. It's always best if the mix one uses dries out evenly throughout right down to the bottom.

Mike

"I personally don't like using it as much as I like using pumice or some other ingredient that opens any peaty mix."

What are the "some other ingredients," if you don't mind? I use varigated (sized) sand in quantity and Perlite, which works great for me. I tend to avoid bark for environmental concerns, limiting it to about 15% of my mix total (about the same as peat in most cases, for the same reason).

"He true passion is music. If it wasn’t a family business I believe he would have gone into music copyright law. Shame but oh well, such is life. I used to love to paint and should really get back into that. Unfortunately I spend all my time studying and worrying about my plant babies. Chicago has an “immersive Van Gogh” exhibit going on I plan on attending as my first outing since covid hit. Not the biggest fan but the way they have it set up is pretty cool and seems worth checking out."

Yeah, a lot of us chose practicality over our other loves. :-) In retrospect, I might have made an initial shot at artistry before reverting back. What, really, did I have to lose? My twenties? :-) I made sure to waste a good portion of those anyway just because it was enjoyable.

Van Gogh I do like, but he's not my favorite. I'd actually risk COVID for a Rembrandt exhibit... :-)

Same🙄 hence why I’m still studying at the end of my 20’s, partially. Thankfully, I have been fully vaccinated otherwise I probably wouldn’t even think about going. Rembrandt is cool. I like Monet (I know, I’m a basic b**ch) and Klimt for big names. A few others I’m sure but I tend to enjoy things that speak to me or I find interesting rather than care about the name attached to the painting. You should check out a doc on Netflix called “made you look” all about art frauds. Well a single art fraud but it’s still good and worth the hour or so. Talk about appeals to authority.

Mike, as always, thanks for the simple and nice clarification :)

There's not a thing wrong with Monet and Manet. I adore both. And it amazes me that art frauds become famous artists after their jail stints. Well, I guess not...they're always amazing artists, just seduced by the cash. :-) I'll check that out (although I don't have Netflix, Mom does...)

Good morning. I don’t like using it only because it floats to the top of most of the mixes I use. But I use it anyways. But when I feel like it I’ll use pumice , course sand, course crushed granite, horticultural charcoal , or small lava stone. Anything that makes my mix course without floating towards the top )

I do have a bit more perlite I can add to my mix but I like the idea of adding some coarse sand. If I have 56 qts of mix. 40 qt bark, 8 peat, 8 perlite- how much sand should I add? And what size are we talking about? Almost like a small pebble, yeah? Similar to the size of course perlite?

Grace, it's really up to you. When you start substituting ingredients. If I am not making the exact 5.1.1 mix which is pretty much universal, I will eye ball it and feel the mix to see what works for me. With my Hoya, which like chunky mixes, I will use some pumice, sometimes completely in place of perlite, sometimes half and half. Many times just perlite because I like the weight of it. It's just my taste in mixes at the time. If using coarse sand, some times I use half that and half perlite for my citrus and gardenia trees. It is just nice being able to put around with different ingredients)) But in the end, I like the 5.1.1 as is too.

When it come to re potting, in my mind I know that most of the mixes I used are very porous, so it affords me the opportunity to let that mix fall from the roots and use what ever porous mix I replace it with. Too I don't have to guess watering, I can water all of my plants the same day knowing they will not be over watered due to one or two heavy peaty mixes that disturb that freedom.

I tend to agree. Coarse sand is going to drain easily, holds very little water and resources, and a varied particle size. Most coarse sands are gong to vary, but will be smaller than Perlite (size up to 1.0 mm for most sand you'd buy, but check the bag). Test what you like with your Hoya, but if you're substituting for Perlite, I'd still use some of that (it's airier).

Myermike wrote: "pumice , course sand, course crushed granite, horticultural charcoal , or small lava stone."

Thankew, thankew. I just added these to my test list. Coarse sand I already use and crushed granite as my pebbles. But pumice/lava stone and hort charcoal I haven't tried. Charcoal is particularly attractive--I'll check the source for renewability.

Morph , it’s for nice that this earth gave us so much options for optimal nerds for sure ))

Needs. Lol.

Same thing, in effect. :-)

Mike: nerds sounded better :)) If you want you can add these to your list: river sand (rounder, smoother), haydite (expanded shale), expanded slate, akadama and kanuma (both are volcanic origin clay and expensive), diatomaceous earth (spill absorbent, NAPA 8822), crushed brick, grostone (expanded glass).

Anyway to me what is interesting is that with your experiments with soil you are moving towards traditional bonsai soil mixes. Bonsai soil mix is not one thing - it is a spectrum of many kinds of natural and man made material. And people adapt with whatever is available. Just like 511 and gritty recipe is not written in stone. Same in bonsai. It is the underlying principles developed over the years that is important and then you adapt as needed.

Well, I'll personally take a pass on the more expensive options; one goal on mine is cheap, in addition to the other stated targets, to make it accessible to many people easily. But it'll be fun to see where Mike goes with it.

Added turface to the list:: duh. How could I forget that. Often also called calcined clay. And for people who do not know it is a common material used in baseball fields and hence name turf-ace. It is used for the bases mainly to quickly absorb water. There are a variety of manufacturers and there are differences in texture, particle sizes and water holding capacities.

One big advantage of durable components is that you can reuse most of it again after a repot. The leftover can be simply processed and smaller particles can be sifted out easily and so longer term costs can be a lot less.

The concept makes me a bit nervy. Of course, any plant that had any disease that required a repot should have everything discarded. Fungus gnats or other soil-borne insects should have a complete change.

Although running those through the oven at 350 or so for a couple hours might do...I never trust it.

Bound resources are still going to be bound and, possibly even more important, unbound resources are long gone. Imbalances are going to be preserved and the listed CEC of Turface is 35-ish (Colin Lewis Bonsai Art), so it's going to be a bit of a nightmare to rebalance.

As noted and previously argued, most will be trying to do that blind. Given the already-stated "acceptable" misbalance of Ca to Mg, it's just going to get worse in the second round of use after the plant's done preferentially absorbing calcium.

(taps teeth) With that, and with the expense comparatively, that and pumice are probably out due to the expense and EC (pumice being 75-ish).

No question if anyone has a soil borne disease or a problem should not be reusing the soil. And if in doubt do not reuse.

Structured soils like bonsai soil are made of 50 to 100% durable components and usually expensive and often hard to get. To me it makes sense to try to recover and reuse the durable component to the extent possible.

Leaving the used mix out for a year in rain and snow is sufficient to flush/clean it. Then it would have to be sifted again to take out the fines and fresh stuff needs to be added (mainly bark which breaks down into finer particles). Common practice in bonsai world is to pre-wash over a 1/8 screen to remove the decomposed and degraded components.

To look at it different angle: a potted plant should be flushed monthly to get rid of the excess salts that have accumulated to lengthen the life of the soil mix. A year of flushing in rain should work even better.

Or consider the length of time a plant is in given soil mix: If binding of ions is such a irreversible problem the we should all repot yearly. By repot I mean complete bare-rooting, washing the roots and use fresh soil.

The real trouble with used soil is the bits and pieces of roots that are difficult to completely eliminate.

Now if I had bonsai worth say $500 or more I will probably use fresh mix every time. Similarly serious bonsai masters tending to a collection worth upwards of $100K cannot be bothered with reusing.

511 mix, on the other hand, is lot cheaper. I will always use fresh soil for my perennials. The used soil either goes to the yard or some of it mixed with fresh stuff is used for some potted annuals.

"Or consider the length of time a plant is in given soil mix: If binding of ions is such a irreversible problem the we should all repot yearly. By repot I mean complete bare-rooting, washing the roots and use fresh soil."

You probably should repot very regularly, particularly if using the wrong balance of fertilizer, that exacerbates a bad initial balance, although bare rooting and washing the roots is overkill. The amount of soil you'll carry along won't be that much and the stress of bare rooting might or might not outweigh the advantage of ditching the resource imbalance.

Misbalanced fertilizers make the ion pumps of the plant work harder than they have to. In the case of a sick plant, that's a decided issue.

And yes, it can be a killer and cause of major issues.

As the constant saying here goes, these babies are in constrained, incredibly delicate environments, yet the constant recommendations are for far too much phosphorus (due to recycling and strong soil-binding), a bit too much potassium (much less of an issue), and way, way too much magnesium.

"To look at it different angle: a potted plant should be flushed monthly to get rid of the excess salts that have accumulated to lengthen the life of the soil mix. A year of flushing in rain should work even better."

Not particularly in terms of phosphorus, which leaches at a quarter inch a year, maximum.

As noted, soil mix is not soil, so the rules can't be applied here, either. Natural soils, even with ECs in the teens, don't change an alkaline balance in centuries of rainfall. Potted mixes with an EC of 50 aren't going to lose a huge magnesium excess in a year.

For those reasons, and more (not wanting to carry any burgeoning diseases I don't know about from pot to pot), I always use new--and target cheaper resources to make that handy.

I can't believe all the issues that can crop up using anything but a good porous mix such as the 5.1.1 , gritty, or the like. I am reminded to stay away from using mixes that hold that much toxic waste)

No wonder so many people have more problems than they realize using a plain ole bagged mix or anything with too many finer particles.

It is much easier to grow vibrant healthy plants without the worries above even if it means watering more often than what is convenient for the grower.

The longer one has to take to water, or for one's soil mix to dry out, the more problems.

Tropic, I forgot about those other ingredients, especially the turface which I always have on hand)

"such as the 5.1.1"

5:1:1 is 5 parts bark, 1 part peat. Bark and peat both have high CEC ratings, so the "toxic waste" status is bad there. The 1 from Perlite is effectively inert (CEC of 3).

Bark EC is around 30-50, depending. Peat is closer to 90.

That's why I chose sand as a fraction. It has a low CEC (1-8 depending on particle size), doesn't rot and require replacement, doesn't settle very easily, doesn't hold a lot of water by itself, and is very airy. Gritty mix is also great.

And it's really just a water pollutant upon discard, important only by the number of discards. However, if people will get annoyed by one person applying too much phosphorus to one garden, I reserve the right to get annoyed by thousands applying too much phosphorus to tens of thousands of pots, then throwing that away. :-) Even knowing that the worst of the problem, by far, is industrial agriculture.

"The longer one has to take to water, or for one's soil mix to dry out, the more problems."

Sure but it can depend. A momentary misbalance in a resource in the liquid fraction that can't soil bind will go away when the water disappears. One that soil binds, but didn't sit in the water solution for very long can be there until the plant is repotted.

One that did both is a nightmare. :-)

So my feeding regimen is extremely different from anybody else's recommended around here, I don't use the same feeding at all, and the generalities even with the experts drive me a bit nuts. But, quite bluntly (and not very nicely), since I don't really feel like needing to call another administrator and needing to take an evening off after defending against a nasty and foully written set of lies, we'll take a pass on that.

Morpheuspa, what was that all about???

Oh boy. Let us try a change of subject.

@Meyermike: What is your favorite source for various components such as pumice, small lava rocks, horticultural sand.

Tropic, good question..

It depends on what plants I am trying to grow. When it come to Orchids so many types of styles I use depending on the kind it is and how much light and how warm the area is. I usually use a lot of pumice.

Hoya's I like to use the bigger perlite size and or pumice, lava stone small size.

Houseplants, I like to mix in turface, or pumice, or perlite.

Citrus and or figs, many succulents and perennials I keep in pots, I like to use coarse sand, crushed garanite, turface, pumice, and or lava stones..

Seems, I always turn to pumice for many uses..That's my go to all I guess.

All of these mixed in with bark, peat, sphagnum , or soil mixes at times, or just alone.

As someone here said, it's the concept of very porous mixes based on the 5.1.1 and gritty mixes that allows me to come to mixes that benefit certain plant material at the time. I use the 5.1.1 mix for most 'tropical' houseplants depending since it's the easiest to make and the cheapest for me.

Thanks for asking my friend..

Topic I just re read your question...I wrote all that for nothing..lol

I thought you wanted to know my favorite ingredient..

I go to Agway, Home Depot as Morph said, Lowe's , The Grain Supply Company for farms, Amazon, Yup, the Dollar Store, and the local hardware store. The pumice and volcano I will find at the local Petsmart and Petco, and or on E-bay if I don't find any there..

Hopefully this post helped some here struggling to make a mix that's just right for their trees needs, or having a problem finding a source for them.

If anyone is stuck without being able to find anything other than perlite, many turn to yard helpings. I know people that live in areas that don't sell even perlite, but they use sand and gravel pits, even small pebbles near their river banks. I guess if one is desperate for a better draining mix, one can become very creative with nature around them)

Mike

No problem Mike, enjoyed your post anyway. Our HD/Lowes are good for nothing except may be peat and perlite which is plenty elsewhere too. We have an Agway - good for pine bark. Grit is from a feed store. Turface from landscaping supplies. Pumice/lava are elusive here. We do have a bonsai supply place but it is expensive and I end up getting from there. I wish there was bulk supplier at a cheaper rate.

Even a cheap bag of play sand from the local HD in an absolute emergency. It's not optimal, but will do if it has to. They sell really cheap (pre-washed, but I'd do it again) bags of pebbles for landscaping and tiny pebbles as well.

Play sand is too small and will never make it to my potting mix. And pea pebbles are too smooth and big to make it my potting mix. Probably as a topping to prevent soil washing out. Masonry sand is coarser but still has a good of fine stuff that needs to sifted out. Same with paving sand.

Tropic has a point; I'd personally never use that in my mixes (even in emergencies). The particles are too fine and will retain too much of a perched water table.

We're here to share experiences and help fellow passionate hobbyists, and if we disagree with others on advice, so be it--but there's no need to take personal offense.

@tropicofcancer (6b SW-PA),

I have found pumice at feed stores in the past, it's called Dry stall.

Yeah I looked for it in the past. Again it seems it is not generally available in the east coast. At least not within 50 miles of us. On the web, the best deal (I think) I have seen is a place called General Pumice. They sell various size grades (sifted and washed) of pumice. The largest bag is 3 gallon for $29 including shipping. I have not yet bought from them. The reviews are good and the product looks good too.

Jojo hello !! True that. Have fun today.
Tropic. Thanks for the info. If I can google ‘general pumice ‘ and get that for 29 dollars I will. Love the stuff. Thank you
Everyone be safe today
Mike

Here you go MIke: https://www.generalpumice.com/shop
Sign up and you will get a 10% discount on your first order.

I'm in Arizona, and the hardest thing for me to find is the bark. :-/ which I need to do soon.

Thanks Mike!

I'm spending my day helping my parents, then stopping at Lowes on the way home to see if they have any new plants. :-)

Jojo, not willing to go with repti bark? Just curious why or why not. Still semi regretting that choice and I haven’t even planted anything in it yet.