Succulents require different soils from other plants in order to actually grow.
There are a number of variables that decide the best soil for beautiful Succulents indoors or outdoors. Using the wrong soil type, you’re going to find yourself solving problems with care endlessly.
What is the Best Soil For Succulents?
There are several conflicting hypotheses regarding soil, but drainage is key when it comes to succulents.
This is because if left in wet soil, the inability of the succulents to survive the drought makes them susceptible to rot.
Wild succulents prefer to thrive in sandy, gravely soil.
But many, too, thrive in small, rocky crevices or cliffsides.
Heavy rains saturate their native, gritty soils, but they dry up quickly.
Many factors have an effect on how long the soil stays wet, such as the amount of water used, sunlight, ventilation, and soil structure. Be mindful, when looking for the right soil, that drying time is the balance of all these variables.
What works for one gardener is not going to work well for another, with all these factors at play.Â
Indoor growers with less airflow, for example, can prefer grittier soil to avoid pests. In contrast, an outdoor grower can use less porous soil in a warm, windy climate to avoid having to water too much.
What is the best soil for indoor succulents in pot?
It is important to have well-draining soil for succulents.
Selecting succulent soil for containers/pots can be a challenge.
Let’s talk about what you’re going to look like on the succulent soil.
The best soil for succulents in pots will hold enough water to absorb what they want, but it will soon dry up so that the roots will not rot.
Succulents absorb water from the air around them, not by direct contact.
Sitting continuously in damp soil allows their roots to rot because they get a lot of water – eventually, the cells in the roots and leaves split apart, causing the plant to die.
If you’re looking for a tried-and-tested, unfailing, high-quality soil for succulents, there’s one thing to recognize in the first place: well-draining.
The same succulent soil is not used by two long-term succulent growers. And most of them are fine.
See how overwatering your succulents are going to do!
Think of the place of succulents and cacti as native, generally arid areas with little seasonal rainfall. Succulents have been tailored to get them a little water at a time. Their roots are very environmentally friendly to quickly retain water, and their stems and leaves are able to hold water for weeks or months at a time.
Think of dry deserts, barren mountainsides with hardly anything but cracks filled with weather-worn grit, and bare branches of bushes on the edges of the jungle.
In certain areas, the soil for the succulents needs to be a little different from the soil in the garden, or they will actually rot. Succulent soil must be able to support plants physically, to retain a little moisture and nutrients, but to drain perfectly so that extra water, especially in wet areas, does not cause plants to rot.
The soil may be dried by many environmental factors so that various soil types are ideally suited to different growing areas.
You will have a part to play in deciding what kind of soil your succulents need in the area where you live, as well as the place where you keep your succulents.
The Perfect Soil for Indoor Succulent
Since there is not as much air circulation around indoor pots in indoor environments, we have found that it is extremely necessary to use the correct soil for the health of indoor succulents.
We strongly recommend using large particle-sized soil, around 1/4′ or 6mm. We learned more about the size of the particle and the role it plays in well-draining soils by reading the Garden Web Forum, specifically from this post by Al. Take a look, man!
In the article, we will include a recipe for soil that works extremely well for indoor sugars. Combines the recipe with the:
- 1 Pine Bark’s Part Fines
- 1 Turface of Piece (an absorptive rock)
- 1 Part Crushed granite
What is the difference between potting soil and succulent soil?
The capacity for drainage is a big difference. Water power is another way of saying the same thing. More water, which drains more slowly, is stored by the usual potting soil; less water is kept by the cactus soil, which drains more quickly.
If you look at the list of ingredients (yes, they are stored in a potting soil bag), some sort of ‘forest products’ would usually be listed as the main ingredient, with smaller amounts of peat moss (sphagnum) and/or coir (coconut husk) and compost.
Often things like vermiculite, perlite, pumice, charcoal, sand will be there as well. And then many of the large packagers also add a fertilizer that you don’t want because one of the greatest risks to potted plants is over-fertilization and “moisture management” additives that should be avoided because they reduce soil drainage and often lead to roots that stay too wet from the soil.
Is succulent soil the same as cactus soil?
Cactus soil is supposed to be much coarser than usual soil for potting. While “forest products” and peat, etc. are commonly included, the proportion of sand and/or crushed gravel is higher. More drainage promoters such as perlite may also be included.
There are a number of online recipes for making your own cactus soil (potting soil as well, but after experimenting with a variety of them, I finally settled on just buying a packaged cactus mixture, then adding a lot of perlites, such as 2:1 perlite soil, or even more perlite.
You’d think it would give you a cactus mix by simply adding some sand to a potting mix bag, but apparently, the sand tends to squish together-most soil scientists recommend using perlite to boost drainage instead of sand for potted plants.
How can you prepare your best soil for succulents?
After years of trial and error, we finally came up with the perfect succulent potting mix formula. It’s the best succulent soil, and it’s also super easy to make! We’re going to share our recipe in this post and show you exactly how to make your own succulent soil.
A lot of people don’t buy succulent soil, they make their own soil. It’s a lot cheaper than buying a commercial cactus and a delicious potting mixture.
Plus, for succulents and cacti, we think the commercial soil mix is low on the sand and contains more water than we want.
Not only is it cheaper than buying commercial products to make your own succulent soil, but it’s also super easy.
Correct Soil for Succulents
It is necessary to choose the correct potting soil to plant succulents in containers! When readers reach out to me about succulent concerns, overwatering causes a lot of the problems they have.
The number one cause of death for succulent plants is overwatering, which is why it is extremely important to ensure that you use the correct soil type to plant succulents.
A well-draining potting mixture is the best potting soil for succulents. It is very important to use a good potting mix of porous soil for succulents in order to prevent overwatering.
Benefits Of The Making Of The Own DIY Succulent Soil Mix
The greatest benefit of making your own DIY succulent soil mix is that it’s cheaper and you’re tracking the ingredients.
Making your own bulk soil mix is cheaper than buying a pre-made commercial succulent soil.
Plus, since you’re tracking the ingredients, you can change this succulent soil recipe to get the perfect soil mix that your succulents love.
What ingredients are used in succulent soil?
As we have said, we find that many commercially succulent soil mixtures are not coarse enough to suit our taste.
So over the years, we’ve been gathering information about making my own succulent blend until we’ve come up with a simple, inexpensive recipe that we love best.
We wanted to make sure that it was easy to find all the ingredients in your local garden center or online. Plus, we use these materials to make our other homemade potting soils, so they’re all very reusable.
How to Make Best Soil Mix for Succulent At Home – DIY Recipe
You need only three ingredients to make your own succulent soil, and you can find them in any garden center or home improvement store that has potting soil for sale:
- Potting Soil
- Coarse sand (turface or poultry grit also work great)
- Perlite or Pumice
All Purpose Potting Soil
Any type of all-purpose indoor plant potting soil can serve as a basis for making your own succulent soil. Using whatever you’ve got at hand (as long as the soil is fresh and sterile).
The potting soil brands we use vary depending on what is on sale at the moment we need to buy the potting soil. It’s best to use soft, porous soil as your base when making a potting mixture for succulents.
Do not use hard garden soil and do not use potting mixtures containing vermiculite or any kind of moisture control potting mixture that says it retains water. Succulents need well-drained potting soil, not one that holds moisture.
Coarse Sand
Succulents grow best in porous sandy potting soil, so it is very important to change your sandy potting soil.
You could use any sort of sand, but to ensure rapid drainage for succulents, we would recommend buying rough sand rather than very fine stuff.
Try not to use sand from the yard, from the beach, or from the sandbox (you never know what nasties will be in that sand).
If you like, you might use turf or poultry grit instead of sand. In this recipe, either of them makes an excellent alternative to sand.
Perlite or Pumice
Perlite is a very mild organic soil alteration. It’s the white pieces that look like Styrofoam that you’re using in a lot of commercial potting mixtures.
Perlite retains very little moisture, prevents soil compaction, and helps to improve succulent drainage. In other words, it helps the soil to drain faster, which is exactly what we want for succulent soil.
You can usually purchase perlite or pumice from any garden center or home improvement store in the same section where you can find potting soil for sale, but sometimes it’s hard to find in stores, so you can buy it online.
Supply Needed for mixing
Along with your succulent potting ingredients, you’ll need a few more supplies to help you measure and mix your ingredients. So, grab this stuff before you get started…
- Measure container
- TrowelÂ
- Container for blending
DIY Recipe For Succulent Soil
The formula for succulent potting* soil that we suggest is:
3 parts of the potting soil
2 parts of rough sand (turface or poultry grit)
1 part of perlite (or pumice)
*Our recipe for the DIY cactus soil mix is very similar, and it is simple to adjust this recipe to make cactus soil for cactus plants instead. You should add around 1/2 – 1 part more sand and perlite in your succulent soil for extra drainage to establish the perfect cactus soil mix.
What is “part” – “part” is only a generic unit of measure to be used with your soil mixing ratio. You can use whatever you want to measure your ingredients, as long as you use the same measure for each “part.”
If you are using a scoop measure for 1 part, use the same scoop twice for 2 parts and 3 times for 3 parts.
So, for example, if you use a 1 cup scale, this potting mixture recipe translates into 3 cups of potting soil, 2 cups of sand, and 1 cup of perlite.
How to mix Potting Soil For Succulents
It’s very easy to blend your DIY potting soil with succulents. All you need to do is dump all in your mixing container (bucket, potting tray, wheelbarrow, whatever) and stir it all together.
Use a Trowel or your hands to mix it. Only make sure that the ingredients fit correctly when you’re finished.
Ok, this is it. It was easy for you to make a succulent soil of your own.
Storing Your Remaining Succulent Soil MIx
One of the things that we love most about making our own DIY succulent potting soil is that we can mix up a big batch and store the leftovers for later. Succulent soil may be put on the shelf of your basement, garage or garden shed.
Before time, you could mix a bunch of home-made potting soil and store it for later use, or just mix it as you need it.
You may want to mix up a large quantity, and then put it in a plastic bucket in the garage, so that you still have succulent soil on hand when you need it.
Make sure that you store your succulent soil in an air-tight container. You don’t want the bugs to get in there.
If you don’t have an air-tight container that you can use, we recommend you buy one of these bucket sealing lids that work with a five-gallon bucket.
