Compressed bales of ProMix, which I buy at Home Depot. I think it expands to something like 3.4 cu yd, or 3.7 cu yard.

I think I pay about $16 or $18 and it goes a long way.

Karen

Thanks. A 3.8cu ft bale online seems to be around $30?

How many gallons or cubic feet do you generally get out of the compressed bales?

I found this: "3.8CF size is compressed and expands to approximately 7 cubic feet loose. Each cubic foot of loose Pro-Mix fills approximately 10 one gallon trade pots"

Something I usually do to extend Pro-mix in big pots is to add pine fines if you can find them, or the smallest chunk size of bine bark mulch you can find - probably up to 50% of that per pot is ok.

BTW I would be surprised if Karen is getting the 3.8CF size for that price at HD - they carry an intermediate size which 5 years ago was $10- $11 in the DC metro area. I just paid $31 for a 3.8 CF bale (retail) here.

What plants are you repotting?

I would think screened pine bark fines mixed with pro mix at 50/50 will work better. I use that mix for seed starter mix to grow tree seeds. Better drainage for sure.

For 1g or bigger, I'm going with 4 parts pine bark fines, 1 part perlite (or any other rocks at simliar size) and one part peat. The key is the drainage.

Thanks for the comments. I'll be repotting various trees (mainly leyland cypress, crape myrtles) and eventually boxwoods and hydrangeas.

I'll second the suggestion of some of the pre=mixed products with other addtions as you wish for drainage. In this area, the compressed 3.8 cf bales are about $18 at a couple places. There are other locations where the same product, even in the same packaging, is near $32. It pays big time to shop around here. You may also be able to get a better price if you talk to the store about buying a number of bales at once.
Renais

Phoam,

you need to go over to container gardening. A lot of useful information. I would not recommend using straight mix from Pro Mix. Look for Al's mix in that forum. I've learned a lot about the mix, why it works better, etc, etc. The mix I mentioned above is for the trees that I'm growing.