Ideal Potting Soil for Your Indoor Plants
For growing healthy and charming houseplants, potting soil is as important as other aspects of plant care like temperature, watering, humidity, pH, repotting, and so on. While picking an ideal potting soil for your indoor plants, you must keep in mind the type of potting soil your plants love to thrive in.
Potting Soil Your Houseplants Adore
Most houseplants are of tropical origin. They originally belong to an environment that probably has plenty of rain and humidity. Naturally, the soil is rich in nutrients due to the decomposing plants that enrich their soil.
An ideal indoor potting soil for your tropical houseplants is usually a combination of soilless mixes such as horticulture peat moss, vermiculite, and perlite/pumice. These soilless mixes perfectly absorb moisture and prevent compaction, but they quickly dry out. Since they do not include any nutrients, you must feed your plants with fertiliser. Soilless mixes are sterile, and they don't invite any pests or diseases.
Like many gardeners, you can also add organic components to the indoor potting soil instead of a soilless mix. Around 20% of organic matter in any growing medium will usually not let it dry.
Some of the gardener’s most favorite organic matter that permits you to accommodate some beneficial microorganisms and nutrients in the growing medium are:
- Peat or sphagnum moss
- Compost
- Decomposing plants or animals
- Manure
- Leaf shreds
- Bark shreds
- Coconut coir
- Fertilisers
The more organic the soil is, the more water it retains hence wetter soil.
Let’s check out the perfect indoor potting soil for your gorgeous tropical houseplants.
Excellent potting soil recipe your tropical houseplants will adore:
- Two parts compost. Make sure to sterilize the compost to prevent any pest or disease problems.
- Two parts peat moss
- One part worm castings
- One part perlite or pumice
- One part vermiculite
- And one part of sand
Mix these ingredients very well. Before planting in your plant pot, make sure to moisten the soil while potting your houseplants. Thoroughly water your plants and water them again if the soil seems dry.
Potting Soil for Your Indoor Succulents
Unlike tropical plants, succulents belong to deserts and other dry areas with little to no rain and bad soil conditions. The soil there is more like dirt that is probably coarse, grainy and deficient in nutrients. Succulents love to have inorganic matter in their potting soil. In the case of dirt, one may consider minerals as an inorganic matter. Mostly, varying ratios of clay, silt, and sand, make up the dirt.
Succulents need different soil than the usual tropical houseplants, and they prefer soil rich in inorganic matter mixed with a bit of organic matter.
Potting Soil Recipe for Succulents
If you are more of a succulent person, you may have various species of them in your indoor garden. Whatever the case is, your houseplants require well-draining potting soil to grow strong and healthy.
Six excellent ingredients to make well-draining succulent potting soil:
- Two tablespoons of limestone
- Two gallons of coarse sand
- One gallon of vermiculite
- One gallon of perlite
- And three gallons of coir fiber or peat moss
Mix these ingredients well and ensure the soil is well-draining and the plant pot has a drainage hole, as succulents don’t like to live in damp soil.