How Potting Soil Keeps Your Indoor Plants Thriving

Have you noticed the trend toward indoor planting? From preparing for hurricanes, getting busy, and absent-mindedly leaving plants indoors to the increasingly popular potted succulents, there’s no doubt that indoor plants are on the rise. But how do we care for them well?

Soil is the medium of life for plants! It’s important to remember that, just like outdoor plants, healthy soil is key to thriving plants. Good potting soil can be the conduit between your plants and the nutrients they need to thrive, whereas choosing the wrong soil can damage your plant’s roots.

Garden Soil vs. Potting Soil

Contained plants have different needs than uncontained plants, including soil type. Potting soil, known as potting mix when prepared without soil, is designed for pot-contained plants. Potting mix is typically comprised of both organic and inorganic materials, fertilizers, and other additives. Garden soil, on the other hand, acts as an amendment to native topsoil and is not ideal for container-bound plants.

Pro Tip: When potting, remember to leave a little space between the top of the soil and the pot ledge. This gives room to sprinkle in seedlings or place and secure plants with the remaining potting mix.

Benefits of Potting Soil

Gaston’s potting soil is uniquely designed to sustainably and effectively support the growth of your container plants. Here are just a few of the benefits of ensuring the soil you use to pot your plants is high-quality potting soil.

Drainage

One of the core benefits of potting soil is its coarse texture and lightweight, allowing it to effectively combat soil compaction with proper drainage. Compacting soil is a threat to root health.

Pro Tip: To further assist drainage, make sure your pot has a drain hole in the bottom and a saucer to keep the area underneath dry. This saucer is especially important to keep spaces surrounding indoor potted plants clean but can be a helpful practice for outdoor plants as well.

Versatility

Potting soil can be used for both indoor and outdoor plants. A hybrid example is hanging plants. Beautiful string of pearls plants, for example, prefer 6 to 8 hours of sun a day. If this spot happens to be indoors during the long summer days and outdoors during the cooler, post-daylight-savings months, a hanging pot with potting soil can take care of your plant in both locations.

Pro Tip: If you’re looking to build confidence, test out your potted plant caretaking abilities with pothos, a low-maintenance indoor foliage plant. They can survive in a wide variety of temperatures and indirect light.

How Gaston Makes Their Soil

At Gaston Mulch and Soil, we make our soil from recycled tree debris. The product of this process is aerobically composted, ridding the soil of insects, fungi, and weeds. After about a year of composting, harmful chemicals are fully reduced to their natural, beneficial components, such as carbon and water.

From high quality to cost savings, there are a number of benefits to using Gaston’s organic soil! Check out this related article to learn more.

Gaston Potting Soil Helps Your Potted Plants Thrive

Gaston Mulch and Soil is a family company. We love getting to share our love of sustainable planting with others through retail and commercial projects. If you’ve tested your green thumb indoors and are interested in expanding outdoors, contact the trusted team of soil experts at Gaston Mulch and Soil. We are happy to help guide you through choosing the right soil for your planting needs.