Transcript:
Hello, everyone! I have four, succulent potting. Mix here that I’ll be comparing side by side. These four are some of the most used and popular succulent mixes out there. I recently ran out of succulent soil. I usually just go to the store and pick up a bag or two, but with this whole shelter-in-place situation, I went ahead and ordered a few bags from Amazon and thought this would be a great opportunity to compare them side by side, so I’ll start from the least expensive item to the most expensive one. I’ll start with this miracle, Grill, Cactus, Palm and citrus potting mix. I got the eight quart bag and this was priced. At eight dollar. I mean, sorry, Four dollars and ninety eight cents, um, product description says it contains forest products, sand and perlite to help prevent soil compaction and improve drainage. I’ve used this product a lot and I’m very familiar with this. It’s not the best quality, but I’ve used it a lot because of the price. How I work with this product is I amended myself by adding perlite to make the soil more porous and fast draining. This works for me, and I’ve never had a problem with it most likely because I live in a dry climate and I also tend to underwater my succulents. Oh, and you should know. Sometimes you’ll find lots of spider mite eggs in the mix. What I do is I? Just toss them out. When I find them and I don’t really have problems with them. But some people have run into infestations. So keep that in mind, okay, so the next product I have here Is the Hoffman organic cactus and succulent soil mix. This was priced at 14.97 for these two bags. These two bags came together and its four quart each each bag. So the product description says this is a lightweight soil conditioner that is specially formulated to loosen clay and reduce caking, while improving drainage and aeration, leaving behind a high quality soil designed to start seeds, propagate, cutting or store bulbs and is ideal for blending with peat, Moss and perlite. Okay, so as you can see, This is a better quality quality product than the first one, but I would still add pearlite to this to add more drainage, but just looking at it. It definitely has better quality. The soil is richer! This also costs three times more than the miracle grow product. If you do the math. These bags cost 14.97 total. Each bag is four quart in size, so for eight quarts This would cost 14.97 each, which is three times more than the miracle Grow bag. But yeah, you do see a difference in quality. I have to say so moving on to the next product. This is the sun girl. Black gold cactus mix. This is priced at 29.99 for these two bags and each bag is eight quart and size. And so if you do the math, you’ll find that this costs almost the same as the Hoffman’s cactus. Mix these come in eight quart bags. As opposed to four four quarts product description says our unique combination of perlite pumice earthworm, castings and compost provides the perfect soil structure and drainage for all types of cacti and succulents. I don’t know if you can tell from your screens. But this product looks great and top quality. I would feel comfortable using this alone without adding anything to it to make it more porous. I do live in a dry climate, and I don’t have problems with over watering. If you tend to run into problems with over watering your succulents, you may still want to add pumice or perlite to this to add more drainage. But for me knowing how I care for my succulents and how I water them, I would feel very comfortable just using this as is without amending the soil. I think this is just the right proportions, and I don’t need to do anything with it, so I am happy with this and how it looks. And finally, we have bonsai jack cactus and succulent mix. This was priced at 39.85 for, uh, for a 3.5 gallon or 13.24 liter bag. And let me tell you guys. This bag is heavy and when you lift it, if lift it, it feels like you’re lifting gravel product description from the website says this is an ultra fast. Draining design helps prevent root rot and over watering contains no heavy potting soil ingredients such as phagnum or peat, Moss, optimized ph of 5.5 perfect for succulents, cactus, bonsai and other acid loving plants. So this is considered one of the best and you can tell they use top quality ingredients. You will definitely definitely not find any spider mites in this mix. See how big the particles are. It’s almost like something you would use. As topsoil, it comes with this chopstick potting tool and also this clip bag clip or plastic tab to close the bag. This is supposed to be a number one seller and it’s advertised to be as a number one seller and I am not doubting the quality of this this product. Um, I, you know, it’s a little too fast draining for me and I would amend this the other way. I would add potting soil to it Just because I tend to underwater my plant and Im and I’d feel more comfortable. If my my potting mix suckling potting mix would have some some water retention for my plants to draw from. Okay, so but that’s just me. You don’t have to do that, so let me put them side by side. Just to so you can see clearly how different each one looks next to each other, see, and also you can tell the quality of the products next to each other. Okay, so you see from the least expensive one. This is the miracle grow one it really doesn’t. Look that good, huh? Even compared to the next one. This is a Hoffman’s organic cactus. Mix already looking better, and this is a black gold cactus succulent. And, of course, the bonsai Jack, which looks different from the rest, It doesn’t even look like a potting. Mix okay there. You go look at them side. By side. I’ve never really compared these potting mixes side by side, so it’s amazing to see the difference, but look how big the these stuff are and this is gonna be very fast raining. It’s gonna be great for those that have problems with over watering. And look what I’m gonna do here is I’m gonna add this the cheapest one. You don’t have to do the cheapest one. You can definitely use a better quality one, and I’m just gonna mix it. I’m gonna mix it because for how the way I care for my succulents, um, this is and all I know it’s too fast draining for me, so I’m just gonna mix it. Give it a little bit of, you know, a little bit more potting mix for, um, for my suck so that my succulents would have something to hold on to, and, um, so that they’d have water to draw from or else. It’ll just be too dry for me, and I know, and I know that already and you don’t have to do this for you. You can just do this. I mean, you can just use it alone. The bonsai Jack. It really depends on how you care for your succulents and your and your and what your plants need. Okay, guys, so there you have it, that’s. My comparison of these four succulent soil mixes. My top choice is the black gold cactus mix. I think the quality of the product and the price worked best for me. Some of you may disagree and that’s okay. I really think that you have to find what works best for you. And sometimes that would take a few trial and error before you figure this out for yourself. Also, I don’t see anything wrong with combining and mixing these ingredients and products together If it works, why not I hope you found this video helpful? I will be doing a separate video on each one of these products and will list the ingredients for each of them. There, please check the description box below for useful links to other videos. I also have a playlist related to this video, which is located in the description below. If you found this video helpful, please hit the like button. It would really help us out with Youtube’s algorithm to see similar videos like this. Please subscribe to this channel. If you’d like to be alerted as soon as I upload a new video hit the notification. Bell, Thanks so much for watching, and as always happy gardening bye. you!