Firstly welcome to our friendly forum. I'm sure you'll have an interesting time reading our posts and taking in the knowledge shared by our members, especially our experienced specialist growers.

To answer your question, and I can only speak from my experience)if by soil you mean 'garden soil' the answer is it works in the garden but not well in a pot as it doesn't drain freely enough.

Secondly as you don't really give your climate or growing conditions it's difficult to give specific advice as potting mixes do vary depending on the climate and the individual growing conditions such as temperature, light, humidity etc.

Basically any potting mix should be a well draining one. To give you an example by what I mean by this, I use a mix of pine bark, charcoal, polystyrene and Perlite, but then I live in coastal Australia and the humidity here may be higher than your location so I can't guarantee that this would suit your conditions.

I would suggest you "Google" the Bromeliad Society International site and open the section on Bromeliad Information and look at frequently asked questions and I'm sure you'll find a more specific answer to your question.

I'm probably not the right person to be answering this question, as someone closer to where you live in U.S. would have a much better idea of your requirements, however I'm sure someone else will come up with a better answer.

Once again welcome to our group, all the best, Nev.

Sorry blue heeler, I didn't see your answer as I was typing mine at the same time.

All the best, Nev.