Hi again it's Jason from Fraser Valley Rose Farm and today in this video I want to cover off two
of the most common questions i'm asked about my soil that i use here on the nursery: one is where
do you get it from and number two is do you mix it yourself? I get it from a local supplier
they mix it for me and i want to answer also why it is that i choose not to mix my own soil
so that local supplier is a place called Sumas Gro Media and if you have a good
potting mix supplier in your area somebody who does custom mixes of potting soil
i really suggest you start looking into that as an option as compared to mixing your own
Sumas Gro Media has been a really good supplier for me and there are a couple
of good local suppliers of potting mix but they've always steered me the right direction
for those of you who are local or regional that is lower mainland bc or washington state
i will link their information down below because they've been really solid for me as to the reasons
i don't mix my own potting soil the number one reason and most important to me is consistency
i have a pile behind me here of 12 yards of soil i brought in for a big job i'm going to be potting
hundreds of roses today and because of that i really want a good consistent mix i've just pulled
up one pot of this and it has some components and it has bark in there it has a mixture of
shredded wood fiber it has perlite in there it has fertilizer in there and i can be sure that
when i get it professionally mixed that it's going to be the same mix in the first pot as it in is in
pot 200 which is really important for me because i'm going to be treating them all under the same
irrigation they're coming in at the same stage of growth i really want them to maintain that
consistency throughout their growth and because of that it's really important that i get a good
consistent product inside of the pot reason number two i don't mix my own potting soil is for time
savings this greenhouse here i put in a new ground cloth over the winter and today i will more or
less be filling the entire thing with roses now that's a lot of work on its own if i had to do
the mixing of the potting soil at the same time it would take me many times longer probably it would
take a one day job and turn it into a three or a four day job and i'm not exaggerating i guess it
does depend on what you have for mixing equipment but here is a solution where i can get my soil for
a good price get it delivered and be ready to go and not have to have any special equipment of my
own to mix the soil consistently from beginning to end number three reason why i like to go with
a professional mixer is because of customization you know that primarily my crop my main crop is
roses which i'll be potting a lot of today and for that they give me a mix that has actually
a really good amount of drainage my roses fresh in pots don't like to sit in too much moisture
it's a bit of a chunky mix again free draining but if i were growing something different they
can give me a completely different mix so when i've gone to my soil supplier and i've said i want
something for annuals they're able to give me a much more peat and perlite kind of mix that's much
looser and allows the annuals to take off a little bit quicker professionally i use the same soil
mixer for my employer and they've been able to give me specific mixes for shrubs for perennials
for annuals for tropicals for succulents basically whatever i need in that soil
they can give me a specific soil for that purpose and even if i don't have preferences like which i
on roses i definitely do have preferences to what my custom mix should include
but if i don't know enough to say what i want in a mix the they've done mixes like
this for other customers they know exactly what should go into an annual mix and what shouldn't
a fourth good reason and consideration why i use my bulk soil potting soil supplier is because of
cost they save me money so look yeah i'm in a small nursery business i don't get to come back
and do this year after year unless i start to make some money so being that soil along with plastic
and the plant itself are one of the three things that go into my pot the cost of my pot
then i really have to watch that cost carefully i feel badly for people who are in a in an area who
can't find a bulk soil mixer because you generally will pay a lot more especially if you're buying
your potting soil in bags the small bags i mean forget about it the medium sized bails
i'm talking the the the peat and perlite bales things like pro mix or sunshine mix
they get a little bit better than the small bags but still cost per pot is relatively high
and probably double what you're paying for bulk soil once you get to those really tall
bales now i'm talking the the skyscraper bales of peat and perlite mix they get a little more
competitive they're probably about 20 percent more than the bulk soil mix but then you have
to have materials handling you have to have a forklift or forks to move this thing around
generally you have to have a bail breaker to to break this thing down so it's a lot more difficult
to handle and it costs you more to boot so if you're in an area that has bulk soil suppliers
definitely that's a slam dunk against buying packaged or pre-mixed soil now as for the cost
comparison of mixing it yourself you have to keep in mind that when these these potting soil
suppliers buy their supplies they buy them by the truckload they're getting really really bulk rates
on this soil and so compared to you going out and buying your own bark mulch and having to compost
it or buying your own peat bulk or having to buy your own perlite you're going to be paying more
for each of the components that go into this thing you'd have to you have to crunch those numbers
real hard to find any savings in it for yourself especially once you consider in what you're using
what kind of mixing equipment you're using now certainly there is a chance you could just buy
uh and mix by hand but then of course you're going back to all the labor that goes into this so for
my money and every every bit of consideration that i've given it this is saving me money rather than
costing me money before i finish up here i want to give you a closer look at a couple of the mixes
that i use for two different purposes the one on the left here i use for seating and the one on
the right is the bulk mix that i just received for potting my roses my perennials and my other shrubs
and i hope you can see right off the bat that there's a big difference in the texture
between these two mixes the one on the left is made by pro-mix it's a peat and perlite mix
pro-mix hp so it's really meant for propagation and seedlings and if you look at it closely you'll
see that it's a very very finely chopped peat and then some fine particles of perlite in there as
well probably about a ratio of 75 percent peat to maybe 25 percent perlite and uh they probably
only have a couple of other things in there maybe some lime to try to neutralize the ph of the mix
and some probably some wetting agent to try to overcome the hydrophobic nature of peat moss
which is a mouthful on the right there is the much coarser mix and i hope you can see and maybe i'll
pull some pieces out here that there's some bigger chunks of composted bark mulch in there by volume
that's probably up to about 40 percent of the mix is these chunks of of uh composted bark mulch
it does have an amount of perlite in there but the perlite as you can see is not as much it's maybe
only up to about 10 percent of the mix and it's a much coarser grade of perlite the idea of this mix
is to be quite loose and airy so that the young roots find everything they need and can work
through it very very quickly if you look at these yellow bits here you can see those ones there
that's the fertilizer that i have incorporated in there so the roots really have
nothing to be wanting for to grow in their first two to three months of establishment
they have their they have their fertilizer they have a nice loose mix they have lots of air
lots of moisture now one other ingredient i wanted to comment on here is that obviously this one
here is made out of peat moss which there's some question about the renewability of that resource
this one here the finer particles that you see in there are actually made of a shredded
fresh forestry fiber and that one is uh just just from my supplier it's something
they've done to try to obviously secure their supply and remain a little bit more sustainable
it's also cost competitive with the peat moss so overall um you know two different mixes for two
different purposes this one i get in the 3.8 cubic foot bales because that's plenty for my kind of
seating this one i get in bulk for my for all of my major potting going through the spring season
all right i'm gonna get the tractor out now and start scooping this over to pot some roses
thanks so much for watching today if you have any questions or comments
about the use of potting soil or potting mix and bulk soil suppliers
please drop those into the comments below the video and be happy to help out