Bonsai soil mix

[TGBentsze]

Hi guys, am quite a beginner, I was searching for a good general/allporpuse soil mix for Middle European weather.

I was thinking about 50% zeolite (its like perlite, and I can buy a fairly large amount for fairly cheap in my area (I'll be a highschool student, so money is tighter)) and maybe 30% potting soil, and 20%pine bark, or just 50% potting soil. what do you think? maybe something different for conifers and for deciduous.

Oh, I dont have trees in final stage yet (beside one, but it is in 60~70 akadama and some pinebark+cocohusk)

 

[bluone23]

Zeolite is good in our area
In Slovakia you can also find terramol 3-6 mm ( there are a few sellers )

You can also try seramis

I’d stay away from potting soil, and add some pine bark or coco husk

A good alternative would also be ibuki sieved substrate from Poland (depends on how much money you want to spend)

 

[TGBentsze]

Zeolite is good in our area
In Slovakia you can also find terramol 3-6 mm ( there are a few sellers )

You can also try seramis

I’d stay away from potting soil, and add some pine bark or coco husk

A good alternative would also be ibuki sieved substrate from Poland (depends on how much money you want to spend)

May I ask you, what are soil mixes for different bonsai, and where you order the components from ?

 

[bluone23]

Yeah there is a big long discussion regarding soils.
Depends also how often you can water them.
Tree species, age of trees, position in the garden…

I’m using the same mix for all decideous and conifers 33/33/33 akadama lava pumice from ibuki.
I also use for other trees 40/40/20 pumice / teramol/ pine bark

For seedlings I add more bark.

Mainly you want to have a good draining soil that retains water bu also alows air to come in.
Its a lot of testing and finding the best mix

 

[dbonsaiw]

There's a lot of personal preferences on this issue and soil discussions typically break down into disagreements, but I think everyone would agree that we are looking for drainage, aeration and water retention. Potting soil has its purposes, but generally we will not use this (especially in bonsai pots) because it retains too much water. You want the water to basically drain right out. The bonsai soil will hold enough water to sustain the tree until the next watering. As the water drains out, fresh air will fill the voids and oxygenate the soil. I use 40% pumice, 40% calcined clay and 20% bark and use that on everything (except my bald cypress and dawn redwoods which purposely get more water retentive soil). Size of the particles makes a difference - you want everything to be basically a uniform size and not too big.