Soil question.

So only reason I’m here is to get other opinions or suggestions.

I’ve been running the same soil for a few years now, when I got it it was “organic potting soil” and I bought perlite & vermiculite and these were mixed in extremely over 50/50.

when I water, I try to water fairly carefully, however over time, the soil packs down and the perlite all comes floating to the top, you can dig in the soil and there’s just a lot of dirt. It’s like the water is lifting out the perlite or the roots start to push it out.


I was wondering if adding sand into the soil going to help make this problem any better (4 parts soil to 1 parts sand) or will this cause the soil compaction problem to become worse?
I was thinking maybe if trying to make the potting soil similar to the texture of soil for succulents which I had heard growing plants do really well in and the soil doesn’t stay compact at all.

I don’t really know a whole lot, but it seems like adding sand is a bad idea. A really bad one lol.
I would look more in the way of other volcanic materials or the like? Again I’m not %100 sure I’ve just heard sand isn’t good in my research.

I have the same issue with my perlite and I’ve tried a few different watering tactics. I kinda just ignore it.
Once I put a layer of it at the bottom of a pot and it seemed to maybe help? You could try that!

I buy hydroton in the 50 liter bags, break it all up (crash the bag inside of a trashbag with a hammer for 20 minutes or so) and i mix that into the soil at about a 1:4 ratio of broken hydroton to soil... it works really well for adding aeration into your soil, helps the pots dry out but not too fast... you will have to play with your ratio and if you dont want to break up the hydroton you dont have to, it works either way but spreads more evenly if you break it up a bit... hope this helps oh and i almost forgot but, wash the hydroton before you put it into the soil or you will have reddish brown soil from the hydroton dust particles.