Soil Type I use is the commom bagged form labeled Cactus / Palm soil, simple way however you can get fancy and mix with sand, peat, gravel or perlite.

I would not mix these two species (Areca and bamboo)due to they are both clumping palms.

I would place 1-4 palms in each pot.

See ya around the forum
-Rusty

Thanks for the info Rusty. Now I just need the seeds to germinate; which may be wishful thinking for a bamboo palm from what I've read.

Actually, don't be discouraged Pud51. I have had no problem germinating bamboo palm seed. I pulled some seeds off a bamboo palm I saw in a nursery that had lots of seeds on it. I soaked the seeds for a day after cleaning and placed in a miracle grow soild mixture that I added more perlite to and put them in a baggie that I placed above my fridge because it gets a little warm there. The plant is doing extremely well now and grows relatively quickly for me. It's a great palm for indoors as well. Good luck.