Specialty Gardening: Miracle Grow add - Chapter II: The Experiment, 1 by heathrjoy

heathrjoy wrote:
The potting soil used in this experiment is Garden Magic Potting Soil. According to it's label..."Garden Magic Potting Soil is blended to be used for indoor and outdoor planting, in containers and beds. Developed for the home gardener. Features a dark blend of reed sedge peat and other materials. Ready to use out of the bag." The ingredients listed are Reed Sedge Peat 80%, Sand, Perlite. It says on the front of the bag that it contains peat moss, this is written right under the words "Potting Soil" and I think is only written there to point out that it's peat based and not dirt based.

This stuff looks great out of the bag. It looks like the ideal soil you'd want in your garden. On further inspection you'll see that it has a LOT of sand in it. Then you put it in a pot and water it, and wait for it to drain. And wait...and wait...and wait.

We added 8 cups of perlite to a 20 lb bag of this stuff and somehow the drainage was actually worse. Go figure. Here's a pic. This was take approx. 5 minutes after watering this 4" pot.