Well it's not like Al's mix is unique, mineral mixes have been used for over 50 years. Before turface, clay from Japan was used. I first tried them in 1976.

OMG, that stuff is expensive! Not to mention shipping charges.

I got a 40 lb bag of pumice locally for around $13.50 - they want almost $25 for about half that much!

Over the past year or so I've seen some bonsai mail order places selling various mixes similar to the gritty mix. I've never ordered any to try, but the prices were very steep on small bags of soil. Plus, and zensojourner noted, the shipping is quite expensive as well.

I suppose you could purchase a bag of similar soils as a sample, but I can't imagine most people buying pre-made gritty mix like this on a regular basis.

TYG

Once you find your sources, it's really not difficult to use gritty mix. And what you can't find, you can easily use other substitutes.

Almost any place that sells the ingredients needed will sell it in bulk; if I buy the stuff once, I have enough to last me a year, give or take.

Costwise, it's a small fraction of buying anything similar premixed. And if it is similar to Al's mix, Lord help us all with shipping. Hell, I'd make it for you for free but shipping it would cost a fortune.

And 5-1-1 is about the easiest thing to source. Recently, I bought bags of something called GreenAll Microbark (common), an enormous bag of perlite from Lowe's, and I always have peat moss soil on hand. This time, it was Roots Organic, which buying did make me a little self conscious as its popular with 420 growrrs, apparently. Garden Lime is at basically every big box store...and that's all you need. And if you can't find that bark, you can go to Petsmart and get the repti-bark so many seem to use for a higher price but still cheaper than that premade one.

That same bark can be used for GM, and Turface is at John Deere (or if not they can order it for you for some $13?) and I'd be comfortable using medium perlite screened if you really, really cannot find pebbles. But almost anywhere in the US will have some landscaping place close enough to go buy pea gravel or something for the grit portion.

I admit it's daunting to think about. And probably a PITA if you feel your plants are fine. I read and read, and barely understood what on earth Al was talking about, haha, until I found the stuff, tried it out, experienced how little water all of my plants actually need, learned I drowned many of my previous plants and finally, what he was saying started making sense.

But once you actually do it, it's so easy and cheap there's no reason not to. I pay over $30 for 2.2 cu. ft of Pro-Mix HP....which last a helluva lot longer if I make one of the mixes or I'd go through $30 in soil every 2 weeks haha.

A cu.ft. bag of bark costs me about $3. The pea gravel in the same size costs about $5. And with cheap HUGE bags of Turface costing $13....it's not expensive to make.

Sugi, I agree that I'd rather make my own soil instead of buying bagged soil. True, it is easier to buy premade soils like the ones from the website mentioned above, especially if you live in a small house or apartment with no room to work or store ingredients, but the cost of those soils is very high per container if you have more than a few plants. For 2.5 gallons the cost of the premade soil at that website was about $30 plus shipping. With the proper ingredients located I can make the same amount of mix for a small fraction of that cost.

As you said, once you find local sources for the materials it's really not a big deal to make a batch of gritty or 5-1-1. The hard part is actually finding the materials to start with. This past spring I drove around to several different big box stores and found nothing of use for container soils. The GreenAll Microbark you mentioned, along with the various other brands mentioned by forum members, simply was not available in my area. I eventually did find some nice bark at a reasonable price at a local store and was very happy with it. I bought a few extra bags to have on hand for early next spring.

Even the perlite was a problem at first. The box stores in my area did not carry the Therm-o-rock brand of perlite so I had to find different sources. I eventually found that the Schultz brand of perlite sold at a box store in a smaller bag was very good for 5-1-1, even though it did need screening. I found huge bags of coarse grade perlite at a local "indoor garden center" in my area that would require little, if any, screening.

Once you have everything the hard work is over. The rest is the fun part of mixing and screening.

Thanks for sharing your adventures.

TYG

In most cases, even if you find a mix with Turface, bark, and grit somewhere, the ingredients aren't going to be screened. One of the primary reasons I started making the gritty mix the way I do (screening to make sure the ingredients are size-appropriate) was to ensure I wouldn't have the ill effects of perched water to deal with. If you're using a soil with a significant amount of perched water, there's no sense in paying a premium price for it - you can buy it by the bale or make it yourself with very little effort.

Al

@TYG -- I can't say I find the mixing part as fun as you, haha. That is tough manual labor if you want to do a big batch (big, as in bigger than enough for a 3-5 gallon pot). I usually recruit the man in the house to do it...or if I'm on my own, I'll do small batches at a time, like 1-2 gallon at a time!

Sugi:

Having now done this a few times I think it's certainly worth the trouble to mix you own soils. There's no question in my mind that it's better for the plants. I just planted one of my container-grown trees in a nice spot in the yard. When I slid the tree out of the container, the 5-1-1 soil fell off the roots immediately, with no problem whatsoever. The roots looked abundant, white, and very healthy. I did not have to do any root pruning and the whole procedure went smoothly and quickly.

Over the last few weeks I've also been helping friends dispose of their end of season annuals, most grown in bagged peat-based mixes from box stores. When removing those plants from their containers many of them come out as a giant single mass. The roots are completely locked into a peat-based "brick" that is very difficult to break apart. If you were trying to save these plants and repot them there would be no way to remove the mass of peat from the roots without causing extensive damage to the existing root system. Since these annuals were being discarded it didn't matter very much.

The differences between the 5-1-1 mix and the peat-based mixes are quite obvious. I would make the effort to build my own soils after seeing what peat-based soil turns into after only one season.

TYG

Great observations, TYG!

Josh