Ha! No - but I didn't want to clutter up that thread - it was getting too heated in there even for my zone 9 taste. :)

Leslie,

You know you wouldn't want to use either of the sands as part of a soil mix without thoroughly and repeatedly washing it, right?

Aside from that, life's a beach, eh.

Cheers,

jh

Of course!!! The salt is havoc on everything down there!

And how about the shells?

As decorations? They're fine, I'm sure, with a few rinses. But if you mean in a soil mix, I wouldn't use them. After all, where then would I find space to put pieces of the woodpecker-decimated ponderosa pine I just bucked up?

Jeff, agree - just wanted to hear from someone more knowledgeable. IIRC, succulents appreciate slightly acidic soil.

Could you elaborate why not to use them in a mix?

I think they'd be an impediment to good growth - the reasons why you'd not use them would outweigh the reasons to use them. If there was nothing else around, I suppose they'd be OK, but since that's not the case, why introduce something that you're not sure about? Depending on the size of shell, I'd guess the soil would compact more easily, the drainage would then be suspect, and there'd be problems when there didn't need to be.

I know a grower who puts shell bits in his mixes to add a bit of calcium for species that prefer calcareous soils...not sure how well it really works though