Best Soil for Indoor Succulents

Hi there this is Diana with How to:  Succulents on my new YouTube Channel.  This is the first in a miniseries about basics and succulent care.  Today we’re going to talk about pots, soil and how to pot up a succulent.  Good drainage is probably one of the most important things you can do for your succulent.  Always choose a container that’s got a drainage hole because if you don’t it can rot very easily from over watering.  Glass terrariums are beautiful and glass containers but they’re not really good for long-term growth so I wouldn’t recommend them.

The best types of pots to use would be clay, concrete or terracotta.  Their porous texture helps to wick away moisture even faster which is great for your succulents plants.

Best Soil for Indoor Succulents – Make Your Own

Normal potting soil holds moisture for a long time which is good for most plants but for succulents you don’t want to use potting mix from the store.  You can make your own recipe.  There are tons of recipes online but I’ll just tell you what I do.  The most important thing is that you want it to be a fast draining mix.  So I mix in half Miracle Grow Cactus Soil and half Miracle Grow Perlite or instead of perlite I use pumice.  So I typically mix in the components into a separate bowl first and that’s just because when I’m potting something up and I’m doing multiple plants at the same time so I want a lot of soil ready to go.

You can do this individually in a small pot as well and just do a small batch.  So, start by filling the container about half to two-thirds full with your new soil mixture.  Take the succulent, tip it over and catch it in your other hand.  This is a good time to break up the root ball.   You want to do this so that the roots can explore the new soil freely and they’re not root bound.  Do this gently.  Just kind of massage the dirt away.  It’s also a good opportunity to remove any dried-up leaves that are around the base of the plant.  Test the height of the plant by putting it in.  If it’s too low you can add soil.  You can also take soil out if it’s too high.  If you’re going to add additional succulents go ahead and follow the same process.  Back fill the pot as needed with additional soil.  This helps to fill in any gaps and you just kind of want a nice even surface on the top.  The last step is optional.  If you want to add top dressing which would be any kind of rocks or pebbles or sometimes even pretty things like marbles, you can put that on the top of the soil.  It actually helps to prevent splashing and keeps those bottom leaves really dry which is good.

So your gut instinct is probably telling you to water this succulent right away. That’s what we would normally do with any other type of plan but with succulents we actually want to wait a full week.  When we’re potting them up and moving them around sometimes we can damage the roots and if you water them right away it can lead to rot.  So just hold off one week before watering.

I typically like to keep my succulents in an area with indirect light during this time just to prevent it from stressing out while it settles into its new environment.

I hope you enjoyed this video.  Bye bye.