I made these grittier mixes. Way to dry for me, or else I'd have to water too frequently in the winter months. The trifasciatas in this home were not happy. None of my plants loved life living indoors in this mix.

I'm still using the products, mainly because one buys #2 cherrystone in 50 lb bags.

I like being able to clean much of the medium for reuse. It just needs more bark. I add Pro Mix and I don't sift, anymore.

I do not have much personal experience using Al's gritty mix(es). However trifasciata type Sans in particular can take a lot of water when kept warm and actively growing.......summer time here. They seem to thrive in moist soils. This is less true in the cool dark days of winter. Golden hahni seems to be one of the more sensitive Sans people grow........yet they show up in the big box stores with some regularity growing in what looks like pure peat moss. I am sure wherever they are grown they are warm and moist........and they must thrive well enought that they multiply and are of commercial value. In any case, you may need to water the trifasciatas far more often than your other succulents in that mix to be successful.

Thanks for the input! My plants should be full indoor plants, so didn’t think they would dry too fast, but iI definitely agree drying out too quickly was a concern of mine. My night owl actually hasn’t been repotted yet, so iI might put that in some more retentive soil. Interestingly, it seems to have been potted in full sphagnum peat, very retentive.iI have been nervous about overwatering it but iI may put the others in a different mix.

Do you guys just use cactus/succulent soil and perlite, 70/30 mix or so?

I no longer grow Sansevieria in any kind of gritty mix. I used to. Most of my gritty mixes are pumice, Turface and Manna Pro chicken grit. I often use a 1:1:1 proportion. I also grow in pure pumice. But -- most of those I grow in any gritty mix are Gasterias and Haworthias, and a couple of Euphorbias, maybe an Aloe or two as well.

My Sans did not do well in any kind of gritty mix, regardless of the variety of plant or mix. I tried everything, and for several years.....and lost some plants too. So about 3-4 years ago, I moved them out to a soil-based mix that is HALF pumice and half C/S soil...often with a handful or two of Manna Pro thrown in. They have done MUCH better with some soil in the mix. Maybe it's the heat in Florida, I don't know. But....I go with whatever works!

Thanks robinswfl for the input! i am going to switch my sans to the c/s soil and perlite mix, and also have a ton of manna pro around that iI will toss in too. I think iI was just too worried about killing my sans with kindness (aka water), I wanted something super Porous. I do see how a good c/sa soil would work well though!

Thanks everyone for your input! I still have a lot to learn!

A bit of an update. I depotted my sans yesterday to change out the soil. My cylindrica and Sayuri had a small amount of root growth, but didn’t look super happy in the gritty mix, so I repotted in c/s soil and perlite mix. Surprisingly, my samurai had a ton of new root growth and looked super happy so iI left it in the gritty mix for now.

Most shocking is my moonshine, the plant I was worried about. When I had received it (ordered off of Etsy) the newest central growth has looked stressed and a little dried, and after a few weeks the two larger leaves it has come with looked slightly wrinkled, and I hoped it wasn’t too dehydrated or had its few roots damaged (it hadn’t had much of a rhizome). Sure enough, it has been growing a nice large rhizome and a pup as well. So I will keep my moonshine and samurai in the grittier mixes for now, but definitely switched my others over to a soil/perlite mix in hopes of stimulating more growth.

Bob -- I love your story about the Moonshine and its new rhizome. That has to be the HAPPIEST of circumstances for us Sans growers--a wonderful "underground" surprise! I think you're doing exactly what's needed -- grow 'em in whatever they grow in best! Wishing you lots of luck (and rhizomes too)!

This is what iI purchased as night owl, not sure if it is just renaming of another cultivar or not, but like the look!

I also appreciate hearing your experiences Russ.iI have a Sayuri and cylindrica in c&s/perlite mixes, and my samurai and moonshine in gritty mixes, and will see how they all do these next few months.iI may eventually move all of them out of the gritty mix as iI have seen people having mixed results with it in regards to their sans, but when repotting the two noted above they had excellent root growth in the gritty mix and didn’t want to disturb them too much right now!

p.s. -iI hate the autocorrect used on this forum, as it doesn’t delete the previous unedited word, just tacks on the new word right after it.iI can’t be bothered to fix every “I” so forgive my typographic errors!

With a name like 'Night Owl' would think it was dark but that looks to be 'Silver Frost'.

Silver frost it seems to be, Stush! Thanks for the ID. i I had tried looking up night owl and didn’t see much out there so was already questioning the real name. Still love the look!

Bob, Not sure cause I have one called Silver Marginata that looks the same. Russ, or Chris can chime in to tell the difference? The one above died and I replaced it with Silver Marginata.

Okay, found out the difference. Silver Frost has streaks of silver thru the centers and not like a silver only like mine.

I thought it was Silver Hahnii Marginated, but looking at examples of Night Owl on an Images search, many seem a bit too big to be a Hahnii-size plant. There is an old, larger size variety of Silver Hahnii Marginated, and that is Pearl Young. So Night Owl is one or the other, depending on it's ultimate size.

Looking at Pearl young,iI think it may be that.iI don’t actually own a hahnii but looking at the size of my “night owl” already it looks a bit taller than most hahnii varietiesi have seen.

Mine was purchased as 'Starlight' Epsy and showed as being larger. So many made up names mostly ending in 'Star'. Like forest star or bright star or some other star all names of regular hahnii. Well grown hahnii can get to 10 inches.

The Pearl Young I saw didn't have as many leaves to a rosette before taking off to 16 inches.

I read somewhere else recently someone had transplanted their sans into the gritty mix and then wasn‘t sure how much water retention there was in the grit, so when they went to check on it, the sans was already sending off a new pup.

I have my samurai, aloe and other cacti in Al’s gritty mix …my haworthia have always preferred gritty mix over Sungro Black Gold cactus mix.

I’m going to switch my sans to either the gritty mix (equal parts Turface MVP, pine bark fines ..i used reptibark from Chewy onlline… and Cherrystone grit #2, AND 1 tbsp dolomotic lime per gal of mix) …or switch them to to Al Tapla’s 5:1:1 mix

I’m erring on the side of the 5:1:1 mix instead, only because the potting mix I have them in now is my homemade mix similar to Al’s 5:1:1 mix, and my sans have been very happy BUT I’ve also moved them out of low light conditions and I have fertilized them once a month this growing season with dynagro foliage pro and theyre sending me pups and the growth has shot up. so who knows

I just put my newest Sayuri purchase in the gritty mix i hope she does well because she is gorgeous

I will need to get some pics in the morning if iI can remember, but my sans that iI moved to the gritty mix really seem happy so far. My moonshine has a pup popping up quickly, and my Pearl young hasn’t skipped a beat. My Sayuri, which had stalled after iI bought it, now has a nice rosette growing and looks to have taken off as well!

I’ve tried growing sans in lechuza pon, which is similar. With my conditions & my habits, my sans did not do terribly well. It rains so much June to November that my sans outside are just in tezontle (a lava rock). My inside sans that I had in lechuza pon never pupped. They didn’t die; they just did nothing at all. I switched to a soil medium & they’re growing again. I will say that, in general, all of my indoor plants, except sans, do better in lechuza because I am a very prolific waterer & I fuss over my plants too much.