- Find out why the right substrate is crucial for the health of your plants and how it affects their growth.
- Discover simple recipes for universal potting soil, as well as specialized mixtures for orchids and succulents.
- Start creating your own perfect substrate for your plants to grow beautifully and healthily!
Collect and mix. Recipe for homemade potting soil
. A very important factor for their proper growth is the appropriate substrate. The potting soil should be fresh and matched to the needs of a given plant species. Potting soil primarily provides valuable nutrients to the roots and stems. This is where vitamins and minerals supplied with fertilizers are stored. Additionally, potting soil stores water from watering and helps the flower absorb it. Potting soil acts as a buffer that regulates the pH level and affects the plant’s ability to absorb vitamins.
You can buy ready-made ones in gardening stores. Depending on your needs, there is soil for succulents, soil for flowering plants, and even soil for citrus fruits. However, the most popular is the universal mixture. It is best for the care of ornamental plants and flowering shrubs. Universal substrate is most often based on a mixture of peat, compost and other ingredients, with the addition of fertilizers.
How to make universal potting soil yourself?
Universal Earth is intended to be a compromise. It should be light enough to allow the roots to breathe well, but also layered enough to retain moisture between waterings.
A mixture consisting of two parts of compost soil (or good gardening and potting soil), one part of sifted garden soil or peat-compost substrate and mineral additives: about one part of perlite or vermiculite works well. You can also add some coarse-grained sand or finely crushed expanded clay (to improve drainage). It is important to mix all the ingredients well. This way you will obtain a loose structure in which water flows freely, but some of the moisture remains at the roots.
Before use, it is worth “using” such a mixture: pour it into a bucket, pour water over it, let the excess drain off, mix again and leave for a day for the material to stabilize. Thanks to this, you will avoid sudden rainfall and settling of the soil in the pot. Before you water the plant, check the humidity – if the soil is too dry, moisten it well.
How to make potting soil for orchids?
Orchid roots need air and water to drain quickly. That is why traditional land is not used for them. A home recipe for orchid soil assumes approximately 60-70 percent. pieces of pine or spruce bark (or bark shavings), 10-15 percent perlite, 10-20 percent charcoal (e.g. activated or finely crushed) and 10-20 percent sphagnum moss or fibrous coconut peat (coco-substrate). This mixture provides the roots with very good ventilation and efficient water drainage, but also provides pieces of materials that retain some moisture.
How to make potting soil for succulents?
Succulents need a substrate that drains water very quickly and does not retain excess moisture. For them, excess water is the most common cause of root rot. To prepare the soil for succulents, mix 3 parts of potting soil (slightly sandy, without moisture-retaining additives), 2 parts of coarse sand (or pumice, coarse gravel) and 1 part of perlite or pumice (pieces, not dust). Mix everything thoroughly so that the ingredients are evenly distributed. Before repotting, you can leave the mixture in the sun for a few hours to dry (if it is too moist).
