I have reused my soil....not sure if it is right or wrong, but it has worked for me. Waste not/want not ;)

I do half and half. I will reuse the soil from last year for the bottom half of my container, and then use MG for the top half. I have never had any problems doing it that way, and it saves me a lot of money. I don't know about the soiless mix. I have only used MG.

Other years I have used fresh soil. This year I am reusing the mix from my large containers. Thought I would try that as others have said it works okay. Remember that seedlings will only be in their containers for a very short time then into the gardens.

The main requirement that I see is that the mix remains light and drains well. If not, add some other mix or peat moss or perlite or compost to help lighten the mix.

thanks for the responses, I reused some old potting soil in the deeper containers and added an inch of soiless mix on top. I didn't think there was anything wrong with this idea, just wanted to double check :)

~Andrea

I reuse my same soil for three years with supplementary feeding with Osmocote, works for me.

I'm going to follow gardenluv's suggestion to only put fresh soil in the top half of some.

A few I will dump and put all fresh soil in. I wouldn't use solely seed starter in containers, actually never started seeds in it yet but have rooted roses in it. I will mix some in with my potting soil to make it a better consistency, however.

I've got one 5-gallon pot of Plumbago I bring in for the winter that seems to still be ok going into the 4th year, have used supplemental feeding of both Miracid and Osmocote for that, not too often. But it is so rootbound, I probably should cut back the roots and freshen what soil I can, hate to mess with it. I killed a bunch of geraniums by repotting and cutting them back too far, no biggie, I can root more from what's left. I'm tired of them, but they do well in containers outside and make for more color, reliable bloomers (all but one new one) until I bring them in in the fall.

aliska: I love Plumbago and I haven't thought of potting it, that's a nice idea, if what I planted last year survivies I just might have to do that.