AusBonsai

Maybe I was a bit slow catching on but there is a worldwide shortage of sphagnum. Apparently it’s due to over harvesting.

What substitutes are available?

I use it for air layering.

I heard in passing that it was being banned from being harvested for gardening....I think maybe in Brittain.

I'm not sure what an alternative is.

Someone in my club had used coco peat to successfully layer black pine recently.

My understanding is they're still harvesting in NZ, but doing it sustainably, so there isn't as much as there used to be.

I've been pulling bits of some sort of moss-type thing off of my recently-collected hawthorns. I'm not really up on moss identification but it kind of looks sphagnum-y. I might stick it in a tray and see if it grows.

I have been expecting sphagnum to get scarce for some time. Even though it is a living thing and so renewable it grows quite slowly so harvest was obviously well above sustainable levels.
Any sort of cutting/ propagating mix should grow roots almost as well as sphagnum but we will need to develop new handling techniques as those won't stay put on a vertical branch while you hunt around for the plastic sheet or wire to tie it up.

Not sphagnum Greg but it will be interesting to see if it works as well or even works at all.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1OvVjHC2JV0

I imagine you could put the container horizontally too and you won’t lose anything.

There's tons of sphag around. Apparently the NZ growing fields were sold to some other enterprise. But there is massive amounts still there, and tons more in Chile, China and Tas (the best) and other places. It's just a matter of someone getting things going again. Sphag grows quite fast in managed bogs. There's no real substitute for it!

Oxley Nursery in Qld has Searles back in stock