Fred - how many cubic feet is the soil mix for that price? I've been buying 3 cubic feet potting mix with perlite, fertilizer etc for around $10.85 a bag at Lowes, the cheapest I have found. It may be worth me finding an Ace in the area...

I get broken bags at Home Depot at 75% off.....Usually by the pallet with a mix of mulch,soil,potting mix, peat moss.A little messy but you can't beat it...

I find a "landscape light" soil mix, with find wood mulch and manure as enrichment, for $30/cu yd, or $3.3 per 3 cu ft, ie, 1/3 the price of the lowes/hd/walmart bags. It's a little heavy for potting, so I bought a 4 cu ft bag of perlite for $15, and cheap coarse sand to help with drainage.

The point is, buying in bulk and mixing your own can be a lot cheaper if you need the volume. I'm amazed at how fast my cu yd has been used up.

Yes, I have already costed out the savings from mixing my own but I do not have a truck and a truck load of anything delivered way out here is a minimum of $60, so it is cheaper for me to buy in dump truck quantities but then I still have to mix it myself and then fill up the trailer to haul it to the potting location as no large trucks can get anywhere near where I want the soil and I keep going back to Lowes instead for the convenience of the bags that I can haul myself and drop right where I want them!

Another resource to check for is a city or county compost site. You might be able to get leaf compost for free or very cheap. This stuff is so good you don't need to add anything to it.

Mike good point. there is a pile of that leaf mold over by my work. but i have to go on my lunch hour...not fun shoveling in the heat and then go back to work....lol I just went to Home deopt this am. I got 1.4 cu ft scotts lawn spot soil for 4.47 /bag....which boils down to 9 bucks for almost
Brads 3 cu ft soil...it looked pretty good. i mixed a bit of sand in it. I finally got around to making a dolly for my half whiskey barrel and put my Moso seedling in it. i will post a pic tomorrow when i get to work. I am getting ready for winterizing that puppy....4 inch casters work great for pushing the barrel wherever i want in the yard....or in the garage when winter comes....it looks a bit funny now....i am hoping she will take off in the spring. One drawback is if everything works out..each winter i'll have to top it at 7 ft to get in my garage.....We will see how it all pans out....

Kurt

Kurt, is the Scotts lawn spot just dirt or is it amended? The Stay Green that I get has bark, peat, perlite, fertilizer etc. added to it.

It looked black/rich. I saw some small chips in it and an occasional fertilizer pellet. no perlite though.... I figured i'd give it a try and see...since Bamboo is a "grass"....we will see. I moved one of my Arrow divisions to my back corner of my property and got 8 pots of shoots and rhizome. so we will see how it all does. My first attempt of dividing and repotting a division. I feel i had to move it. it was crowding an area that i want to put a lamp post. A quick note. Tons of rhizome growth on that Arrow division. I know the one i moved will probably not grow to big next year but i have hopes for the rest of it in the spring. I also have some parts of that division that broke off sitting in a bucket of water. If i can get a few more pots...then great.....I took a couple of pics....

Kurt

Another source of additive a friend just discovered is a producer of log homes. They have well rotted saw dust, leavings from the cut logs, for $5 a cubic yards I think it was. Coffee shops are an easy source of old grounds.
Mike

BTW....the bags of soil i got i noticed that it appeared to be an advertisment....50% more free on the bag which means that normally it sells for 4.47 per cu ft....I assume i got the advertisment/promotional bag.

Sounds like a lot of you guys don't have good fertile natural soil. Would I be safe to assume that? Around here I have planted all my bamboo in rich black native prairie soil.

We have some of the best soil around. Just not on my property. I'm short on soil. my property is just a hair low. so i am in the process of bringing in bank run for drainage and then topsoil. the only thing i lack here is the coin for the tandems. I got a cement mixer this year so i can do my own mixes but just lacking the "mix" part....in time though....

Kurt