Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Don’t be fooled by terms like “Professional” or “Premium” bonsai soil mix because this product is neither one. I bought an 8 qt. bag to repot an assortment of Japanese boxwood, juniper procumbens, and ficus benjamina trees in new 4” and 6” plastic and ceramic pots. The manufacturer states this mix contains 1/4” red lava rock (30%), 1/4” limestone pea rock (30%), calcined clay (30%), and 3/8” pine bark (10%). This claim is not even close to being true as about 50% of the mix is pine bark in particles smaller than 1/16” and some pieces are about 1/2” or larger. Very few pieces of the lava rock, pearock, and calcined clay are 1/4.” In fact, most of the substrates in the soil mix are smaller than the round, grey slow-release fertilizer pellets that I added after planting. Two of the key features are this soil mix is “ready to use” and it “provides proper plant support, moisture, and drainage for all types of bonsai trees.” Again, this is completely untrue. In spite of the mix failing quality control for proper size, I used the soil right out of the bag. That was a huge mistake as my ficus trees started dying within 2 days of being planted. When I tested the moisture in the bottom 1/2 of the pots, I found the mix had compacted so tightly I could not get a wooden chopstick to penetrate the soil. Clearly, the roots on my trees couldn’t dig through the mix either. I had to unplant all of my trees, rinse out the soil mix to remove all traces of dust and particles smaller than 1mm, then mix it with a 1:1 ratio of perlite to prevent the mix from compacting into something like a wet brick. One of the photos I included shows the silt-like sediment that collected after rinsing off the soil mix with water. It may be hard to tell from the photos, but when that rock/bark dust mixed with water in the pots, it was like mud that glued all the substrates together and prevented the soil from draining or drying out completely like a 10% organic mix should. If you’re going to buy this mix because it’s less expensive than a boon’s mix of inorganic akadama, pumice, and lava rock, then be prepared to thoroughly filter, rinse, and amend this soil with perlite, pumice, lava rock, other substrates that actually measure 1/4”, so that water drains through it properly and lets your tree roots grow without being choked or crushed by a poor quality soil.