Packing peanuts

[chancey84]

Howdy, I have recently repotted some cacti that I bought from a nursery here in Houston. Several of the plants had styrofoam packing peanuts in the pots and soil that I purchased them in. I have read that a good cacti soil is light and airy that drains well. It seems to me like packing peanuts would be a good option for making a cacti soil light and airy. Anybody experimented with this? Good/Bad results? Thx

[adetheproducer]

I have seem polystyrene balls used like that but these packing peanuts are usually (these days, they used to be polystyrene) biodegradable, they are made quite like watsits or puffy crisps. I think there is a risk they would break down.

[DaveW]

I suppose Perlite would be a similar material, but produced from natural expanded rock. The main problem with these puffed up materials is they do tend to float, particularly if you occasionally submerge the pot in water to ensure the potting soil gets completely wet.

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Many artificial ingredients are now being introduced into commercial potting soils. Also obviously for hydroponics an entirely artificial substrate is often used.

[iann]

Is it actually the packing peanuts? Expanded polystyrene? How big? Nothing wrong with it, but a surprising thing to find from a nursery. I've used them to pack out the bottom of very large pots (not succulents) to reduce weight, but I wouldn't want them mixed into the general soil.

[chancey84]

They were similar to these. I don't have any of the exact ones from the pots from the nursery. When I repotted a few had roots that were growing through and around almost like they were holding them into the base of the root system.

[greenknight]

It's cheap filler. If it's polystyrene, it doesn't absorb moisture, doesn't really become part of the soil, it just takes up space.