I've never found any store-bought brand that is 5-1-1 and I've done a fair amount of searching myself. Repotme.com has some good mixes. And some Etsy sellers that have "chunky aroid mix" that comes close. Warning, they are not cheap.

One of my local nurseries sells what they call "orchid mix" but it really is a chunky, well draining, mix consisting of bark, some peat-based soil, and coarse perlite. I actually use that a lot and mix in a bit more potting soil if the plant seems to be the type that wants a little more consistent moisture.

Not sure what type of plants you are potting up. But in a pinch, I've used the Gubler's Coarse-grade orchid mix which you can buy at Lowe's. It has bark and coarse perlite. Then I just add some high-quality potting mix to it. I like FoxFarm Ocean Forest. But that's just my preference.

As popmama mentioned, there is no prepackaged soil mix similar to the 5-1-1. IMO, none even come very close. But as also mentioned, some of the better quality bagged potting soils can be relatively easily modified to come pretty close. The Ocean Farms is good. Also ProMix BK55 and G&B Blue Ribbon Blend. Dr. Earth and EB Stone also carry some not too bad potting mixes. You just want to make sure that peat moss is not the primary ingredient in the mix and add more bark and/or perlite as necessary. These may also be somewhat regional in their availability - most potting soils and mulches are - so you need to check out what is on offer locally.

TBH, by the time you have amended or altered a commercial potting mix to come close to the 5-1-1, you could have mixed up a batch just as easily.

It can't be stressed enough that growers wishing to take advantage of the enhanced opportunity offered by highly aerated/ fast-draining grow media, need to understand that a very large fraction of the medium's particles must be coarse. You really cannot effectively amend (for example) a peat or coir based medium by adding bark; this, because the bark fraction will end up being many times larger than the peat/coir fraction, so you really can't then say you amended a water-retentive medium by adding bark. You will have amended the bark with peat/ coir/ other in the same sense that you don't like french fries with your salt or coffee with your cream.

When you start with a fine material like peat/ coir/compost and start adding bark, o/a aeration (on a per volume basis) DECREASES in the same way that adding marbles to a jar full of BBs decreases porosity. This flies in the face of what most growers believe and practice, but here's the reason. The only way to take advantage of greater air porosity offered by chunky material is to make sure there is NEVER enough fine material to fill all the spaces between the coarse particles. Whenever all spaces between the coarse particles are filled with fine particles, you might as well be growing in the fine particles only. For a visual, see figure 2, page 3 below.

Al

Hi everyone, thank you for the thoughtful suggestions! I agree there’s nothing quite like 5-1-1 on the market, which is why so many of us opt to mix our own. I did some browsing based on popmama’s suggestion, and I found a mix on repotme.com that I think is the closest I can get to 5-1-1. Their cactus and succulent imperial potting mix looks to be mostly bark and perlite, with no peat or coir. I think this should be a suitable base and I can mix in a small amount of peat that I have around. I agree with Al that l’ll have the most success by starting with bark and adding in some peat rather than the reverse.

Thanks again for the discussion. For those curious, here’s the link to the mix I’ll try: https://www.repotme.com/collections/cactus-and-succulent-mixes/products/cactus-and-succulent-imperial-potting-mix?variant=19745314177097

L - you're same zone as me - where do you live? I ask because there's some chance I might be able to help you find appropriate pine bark.

Al

Thanks for the offer! My zone is actually out of date - I was in central Illinois but now I’m in middle Tennessee.

How close to Hendersonville?

See Pine Fines @ $42/ cu yd. I'm pretty sure if you showed up with a tub or several 5 gallon buckets and a smile they would sell you less than a yard. BTW - there are 174 gallons in a cu yd.

Al