The ultra-simplified succulent soil mix

"The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak", said German-American painter Hans Hofmann, who was a major influence in the development of abstract expressionism. His patches of pure color are severe and express and represent nothing but themselves alone. Thus, blue is freed from associations: blue isn't about a blue sky anymore. Blue does not exist because of the sea. Blue represents nothing but blue and it is up to the spectator to draw up comprehensions and emotions about it. Meanwhile, Henry David Thoreau admonished our inclination to complicate: "Our life is frittered away by detail... simplify, simplify."

The mantra to break down things into its simplest form carried on even to my gardening, and nowhere is this most expressed than in my approach to preparing soil mixes for my succulents. If you have been following my writings in this blog, then you probably already know that I have been to the same phase as just about any succulent novice out there. I have experimented with a range of materials, and while this has resulted in a number of deaths it has also brought epiphany. As I said before, if you want to be able to maintain succulents long-term, then look not into nurseries but into how these plants live in the wild. And many of these specialized plants grow on inorganic soils, rocks mostly.

Many practitioners, usually the beginners, will tell you to add vermicast in your succulent mix, to which I had asked myself rather ruefully "are there earthworms in the desert?" They'll also tell you to add carbonized rice hull, manure, leaf mould, sand, diatomaceous earth, or whatever they think might work. Been there, done that. And the batting average isn't impressive. Of course, succulents are a very diverse bunch, so you'll get away with a hodge-podge of ingredients with perhaps some Echeveria or stapeliads. But your success rate would be limited- especially if you don't have a greenhouse. So please take a good look at the photo above, because that is a very good representation of what I use. There's some pumice in there, along with S1 (crushed basalt, available in hardware stores that sell bags of concrete and sand), some dried moss (visible on the upper left portion of the pile), at least one piece of stray bark, one dried leaf (lower right), and other pieces of tiny rocks of different, ambiguous types that are likely the same ones that get lodged in your sneakers' soles. There is no sand and there is no worm poop. I just poured the separate S1 and pumice pieces on the ground and swept some nearby debris into the amorphous mass. I use whatever is at arms' reach. I do not have an exact recipe and my soil preparation today may be somewhat different from the one I will make tomorrow. And I find advice to use pumice of roughly the same particle sizes just plain nonsense. If I get bigger rock pieces, then these go at the lowermost level of the pot and everything else goes to the top. No ratios to bog me down. Just an ultra-simplified approach. And, like I said in my previous posts on the matter, rocks aren't as inert as you would like to believe. Rocks have nutrients. They are the nutrients. However, it takes a long time for these before it starts leaching those nutrients for the plants to utilize, and only then in very minuscule amounts. So if you're worried that your plants may not get enough, then just use any fertilizer of your choice. Organic materials like vermicast and leaf mould provide these but also affect soil consistency, pH, and aeration in the long run, much to the detriment of your plants' roots. And this stuff also invite ants. And where there are ants, then expect mealybugs and aphids to sprout like 'shrooms. Correcting the situation entails repotting and dunking plant parts in chemicals- a laborious task that stresses the plants. So shed these away and simplify. Use rocks and fertilizers. It's that simple. Simplify, simplify, then simplify again.