Pumice for Root'o'Rock

[kcpoole]

Now that is awesome Fredman
Love the pink ones.
FYI, the pumice we can by here that I use in soil mix now is imported from NZ

Ken

[fredman]

Ken. Yeah it really is abundant here. I buy it from a big outfit that does bark in all sizes. They have huge heaps of different size pumice.... $10 per 50l bag.
The thing is NO other medium what so ever is allowed into the country. The ONLY things we have to use is pumice, bark and sphagnum moss.
Mitre 10 has a pallet full of Growstone (artificial pumice made from recycled glass) from the USA on special now. Its been for sale for $40 (9 liters) since lasy year round about this time. Nobody bought, so they selling it for $10 now. I bought a bag and compared it to pumice, and it turns out pumice is double the weight...holds onto moisture longer and absorbs more water than the growstone. I love my pumice I really don't miss any of the other mediums...
Then again I've never used anything else, so I don't really know what I'm missing, even if I would miss it....
I've been reading extensively on the American forums and pumice is up there with the best. In many cases it out performs most of the mediums. The last few years I've been experimenting with straight pumice and I don't see any negatives so far. I'm moving all my trees over to that come next spring. With my satsukis I add some chopped sphagnum, and add a full layer of sphagnum on top.
Pumice holds water for much longer than we think. I did some tests and it holds more water and for longer than pine bark for instance....

[kcpoole]

Ken. Yeah it really is abundant here. I buy it from a big outfit that does bark in all sizes. They have huge heaps of different size pumice.... $10 per 50l bag.
The thing is NO other medium what so ever is allowed into the country. The ONLY things we have to use is pumice, bark and sphagnum moss.
Mitre 10 has a pallet full of Growstone (artificial pumice made from recycled glass) from the USA on special now. Its been for sale for $40 (9 liters) since lasy year round about this time. Nobody bought, so they selling it for $10 now. I bought a bag and compared it to pumice, and it turns out pumice is double the weight...holds onto moisture longer and absorbs more water than the growstone. I love my pumice I really don't miss any of the other mediums...
Then again I've never used anything else, so I don't really know what I'm missing, even if I would miss it....
I've been reading extensively on the American forums and pumice is up there with the best. In many cases it out performs most of the mediums. The last few years I've been experimenting with straight pumice and I don't see any negatives so far. I'm moving all my trees over to that come next spring. With my satsukis I add some chopped sphagnum, and add a full layer of sphagnum on top.
Pumice holds water for much longer than we think. I did some tests and it holds more water and for longer than pine bark for instance....

Grant did a soil test here and one thing he did find that was trees in Single components did far worse that trees in combination mixes. I do not knwo if he tried pumice, but well worth a read.
Re the performance of it v bark, that does not surprise me at all. I get similar benefits from Diatomite too.
My combination mix now consists of Pumice, diatomite and Zeolite and my trees love it

Ken

[fredman]

Yeah I would like to have had some other components to test as combinations. My only combo is pumice, bark and granite (I steal from construction sites)

[dan.e]

Hi we're do you get the pumice from in Australia ken

[kcpoole]

Hi we're do you get the pumice from in Australia ken

Lux cuttings in Sydney the only place i know of to get retail. The Wiki has info on the importer who only sells in bulk now

https://www.ausbonsai.com.au/wiki/index.php?title=Pumice