Sun Gro Horticulture Black Gold African Violet Mix

Just repotted violets into this soil in larger 6" containers. Soil is of a medium fine mixture. No big bark or twigs.Too soon to tell if it is nutritious. As all soil does when you first plant in it, it was dry & somewhat difficult to have it absorb water. Soaked it awhile & that solved the dryness.

I’ve been digging in the dirt for decades. This is hands-down, the best soil I have ever used. It’s just the right texture between grainy and the type that when you pour water on everything spills out the top because it’s not being absorbed. Full disclosure, I grow African Violets under lights. I have used African violet specific soils as well. I grow regular house plants and potted plants outside. I use this now for everything. I got it approximately five days ago and my plants responded immediately. They love it and that means I love it. I’m now a Black Gold groupie. No more mixing my own soil because I couldn’t find any to suit me. There are a few tiny pieces of bark in this. For laying down leaves I did pick it out, but there were very few. I hope this helps! Thank you to all the reviewers who helped me with my decision to buy this.

I had bought a bag Espoma African violet mix before this, and I hated it! It was weirdly hydrophobic, so wetting it was difficult, and even with plenty of perlite, it felt heavy when it finally did get wet. I had some in self-wicking pots, and when I repotted them recently, the bottom half was a sodden mess, and the top half was bone-dry. I was so glad to be done with that bag! Decided to give this brand a try, and so far, I’m really pleased with it! It’s a fairly large bag, too.It has a very black color, and it seems to have a decent amount of perlite in it, although I always add more. It wets easily, and doesn’t feel heavy when it’s moist. It has earthworm castings, and while I like those for nutrition, they tend to be marble-sized clumps, so I have to break them up, but it doesn’t always break up the greatest. Almost need to run it thru a sifter, but it hasn’t caused me any issues, and my African violets so far look good in them. I think I will add an extra handful of activated charcoal to it next time I pot some up, because I had a violet in a container I didn’t realize had no drainage, so it was over-wet for several days, and it smelled really bad, really fast. I haven’t had it long enough to judge it completely, but you can see the new batch of violets I got about a week ago. Most of the plantlets were unrooted, and they rooted into this without even wilting, and I only had one leaf decompose in my unrooted leaf plantings. Way better success rate than with the espoma!Edit: I’m back! Finally went thru my bag and I’m here to restock. Still have nothing but great things to say about Black Gold, and also no fungus gnats like some brands come with! I have such a high success rate with this soil, and I’ve used it on everything from African violets to other gesnariads to begonias and they all thrive in it.

Top quality. Best pre-mix bagged potting soil that you can get. 40+ years of buying or mixing my own potting soil and this is by far the best. The base soil is very high quality and they actually use coarse perlite instead of microscopic perlite or flake vermiculite. The latter two do just the opposite of what you want. Black Gold is very light and airy making it perfect for most houseplants. This may be labeled African Violet soil but I use it for most of my other houseplants. I use it for everything except the obvious plants that need something different, ie cacti. Also, its NOT full of Nitrogen like all of the others. Allowing you to use the proper fertilizer required by individual plant species. Many plants do not like a lot of Nitrogen. Lastly, I compared it to that name brand soil that you see at major stores, and this is actually cheaper. I just bought another bag and sent it to a friend before they started a repotting job using that other name brand. Thank you, Sun Gro!

I purchased this because I have used this brand before for their coir mix, for my vegetable plants in grow boxes, and have been happy with it. There were many large sticks, that had to be removed, this isn’t a problem with the larger AV plants but has to be picked through for the starters. I also found that it need a little more vermiculite, and perlite added for better drainage. So far my Violets have been doing well. I will add that others have commented on there being flies in the soil. I did have a problem with flies at first but I’m not sure whether it came with the soil or a batch of shipped starter plants. That was easily taken care of with sticky traps, and mosquito bait (added to the water), both available on Amazon (Summit Mosquito Baits, just follow directions), it is harmless to the plants. And to be honest there is eventually, the possibility of flies being simply attracted to the plants regardless of the soil used. I did not find any indication of mold, or mold growth. Overall happy.

Very good ,would order again.

I've had good luck with African Violet mix and this is no exception. I had a bad fungus gnat infestation that nothing worked on after I bought some cheap potting soil that had eggs in it. I gave up and bought this to change everything to and my plants are already thriving in it. I've had this spider plant for almost 2 years and it never produced any babies. Not long after planting in this soil, voila, a child emerges!

I have never had a problem with fungus gnats when using this potting soil. All of my houseplants are thriving and seem to love it. The only thing I do is add a bit more perlite and it's good to go. Highly recommend.