A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The House Plant Forum Soil question

Hi guys, new to the forum, I'll also apologize in case this question has been asked and answered before and, indeed, if the question is a bit dumb.

Short summary, I live in a flat, no garden or anything so I only have house plants...quite alot of them in fact, because of this, buying a big bag of compost from the shop is a bit of a problem as I have no storage for it.

What I do have however, is smaller bags of spiderlife substrate for my African land snail habitat, is this soil okay to use for re-potting? I only ask as I would assume bags of garden compost have added nutrients for the plants.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help a noob out.

Zik :)

Hi Zik -
Very interesting question, not stupid at all. Gave me the opportunity to look up some stuff I knew nothing about. I was trying to find the ingredients used to make the Spider Life, but couldn't find any place they were listed. It did say that the stuff was moisture retentive, though, and that might make it not so good for potted plants. With them, the biggest requirement of potting medium is that it have good drainage.

Are you not able to purchase small bags of potting soil, or as you in the UK call it, compost?We have stores all over - groceries, big box, hardware, garden - that sell it in small bags. Potting mediums may have "special ingredients" added for plants, but mostly that's for a marketing ploy and not necessary. Plants make their food from light, water, air, and the decomposing organic and inorganic materials in the soil. Balanced fertilizer e.g. 6-6-6, or even better 3-1-2, can be added 1 - 4 times per year depending on light (more light, more fert.) Of course, the fertilizer subject is widely debated, from fertilizing every watering to never fertilizing. You can do some research and experimentation to see what works for you.

Sorry, hadn't checked the post in a while.

Thanks for the informative reply.

Recently I've just been mixing potting compost along with sand and gravel until I can find a more permanent mix.

Limited for soil around where I am, can't even find cactus mix for my cacti and perlite is something of a mystery to this area apparently lol, may have to revert to buying it online but might not be a bad thing, nearly time for their sleeping period now anyway so maybe come late spring I'll try a new mix.

Got a lot of different plants like bonsai and palm varieties etc so will need to see what's best for each, both a chore and a fun task :p

A fun task indeed. You can research most of the winter, then get your materials together for repotting in the spring. I'll bet you can find basic materials in your area, things like peat, bark pieces, crushed gravel (chicken grit), builders' sand...then maybe order things like perlite, if you want it. People have success with all kinds of potting medium. Happy mixing.