AusBonsai

kcpoole wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 10:08 pm

squizzy wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 8:13 pm

Keep Calm and Ramify wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 8:11 pm can I just buy a 30kg bag of the blonde virgins hair? (...Asking for a friend)

Can you get ingredients individually. I was going to throw the rest in the bin.

I can supply most indivuidually excepet the Chines soil as that has too much corona in it to be imported at the moments and the Diamond dust is a little scarce as they are bitch sand down

Ken

Ken did you just type that with your left big toe.

pines and junipers get

1 part pine buggets
1 part akadama
2 parts pumice

Others get "Bonsai Soil"

Simon

Ken did you just type that with your left big toe.

Surely you have known Ken long enough to know he uses interpretive text Squizzy ?

Hi Folks that damnable request for the perfect soil mix again. IT SIMPLY DOES NOT EXIST. Many factors will affect the best soil for you including:
. Your growing environment
. feeding/fertilizing regime
. types of trees grown
. climate (summer heat/winter cold)
. etc.

Any soil should be at its best in the worst conditions and that for me is in the cold wet winter

You need to talk to growers local to you. That said here is my mix I have used for more than 30 years. Probably unfashionable currently but it works for me. Note my trees are grown in full sun with automatic watering as required. It consists of equal arts of a good quality potting mix and river sand. When potting up I add some blood and bone and slow release fertilizer ( complete fertilizer with trace elements added). Note I never use potting mix for natives at all as it is deficient in minerals that all plants need.
Dennis Mc

Keep Calm and Ramify wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 8:11 pm can I just buy a 30kg bag of the blonde virgins hair? (...Asking for a friend)

squizzy wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 10:58 pm

kcpoole wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 10:08 pm

squizzy wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 8:13 pm

Keep Calm and Ramify wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 8:11 pm can I just buy a 30kg bag of the blonde virgins hair? (...Asking for a friend)

Can you get ingredients individually. I was going to throw the rest in the bin.

I can supply most indivuidually excepet the Chines soil as that has too much corona in it to be imported at the moments and the Diamond dust is a little scarce as they are bitch sand down

Ken

Ken did you just type that with your left big toe.

I am am claiming autocorrect as the culprit!

Kate, just in case you wanted an answer...

I'll agree with Dennis, my mix is 50% native potting mix, 50% coarse grit (like pumice, diatomite, coarse river sand if you can't get the others.) It's a basic recipe that will get you started. If finding the ingredients is a problem, you might like to connect up with your local club, who usually have the sourcing worked out .

Good luck. The hysterical madness that your very reasonable post has stimulated, is due to collective insanity - there have been endless posts here, everyone thinks their own mix is best, and there is never The One Perfect Recipe. Try what I've suggested, and modify it to suit your trees, your climate, and your habits - for instance, if you are a nervous over-waterer, you'll need more drainage, if you are a bit unreliable with watering (join the club!) you may need a bit more moisture-holding stuff in your mix. Pines might need a bit more drainage, Leptospermum and the like, that are dead if they dry out even a bit, may need more potting mix. It isn't rocket science, a wide range of mixes are used successfully, but it needs to suit your climate, your trees and your temperament.

Gavin

GavinG wrote: ↑May 13th, 2020, 4:11 pm Kate, just in case you wanted an answer...

Good luck. The hysterical madness that your very reasonable post has stimulated,......

Gavin

I must agree with GavinG (not Gerard ) --- it must be something to do with isolation....

Kate, I cannot remember a post that has stimulated so much immediate and funny responses. Great post ... albeit I am sure you thought you might receive one of two logical responses to a straight forward question. Hang in there.

shibui wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 6:30 pm ... My mix is 70% mini pine bark, 30% propagating sand with a little zeolite and dolomite to balance pH as well as the required fertiliser. I use that with all the trees here.

Hi Shibui - just wondering, is that regular pine bark or composted pine bark?

I've read mixed opinions: Some say non-composted would draw down the nitrogen too much, and some say that because it decomposes so slowly and re-releases N as it breaks down that effectively it doesn't matter
Down in Tassie a lot of "common" soil components are hard to come by, but non-composted pinebark in various grades is readily available, as is propogating sand.

Thanks,
Brett.

shibui wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 6:30 pm

My mix is 70% mini pine bark

Is that pine bark mulch?

Brekel wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 12:44 pm

shibui wrote: ↑May 12th, 2020, 6:30 pm ... My mix is 70% mini pine bark, 30% propagating sand with a little zeolite and dolomite to balance pH as well as the required fertiliser. I use that with all the trees here.

Hi Shibui - just wondering, is that regular pine bark or composted pine bark?

I've read mixed opinions: Some say non-composted would draw down the nitrogen too much, and some say that because it decomposes so slowly and re-releases N as it breaks down that effectively it doesn't matter
Down in Tassie a lot of "common" soil components are hard to come by, but non-composted pinebark in various grades is readily available, as is propogating sand.

Thanks,
Brett.

Pine bark USES N as it breaks down. It contains very little N itself. To use non-composted pb, it needs to be aged first to remove toxins. 6 weeks moist in a heap. Hot composting with Urea and Fe (most commercial bark based p/mixes) increases CEC and reduces N drawdown. So you may need to use a bit more N to get the same results from aged bark. With proper feeding you can grow high quality plants in it.

Thanks Mike, appreciate your knowledge and willingness to share

All that Mike said.
The 3-6mm pine bark has been composted before use in the mix. You still need to add more slow release N and more fertiliser at potting up to counteract the continuing breakdown of organic components in potting mix.
Completely inorganic mixes do not have that problem of nitrogen draw down but most also have a very low CEC so cannot hold nutrients. Inorganic mix will need more regular application of fertiliser to keep the plants well fed.

Potting mix is a science. Making your own sounds simple but there's a lot more to it than just mixing components together.

shibui wrote: ↑May 22nd, 2020, 5:05 pm Completely inorganic mixes do not have that problem of nitrogen draw down but most also have a very low CEC so cannot hold nutrients. Inorganic mix will need more regular application of fertiliser to keep the plants well fed.

Potting mix is a science. Making your own sounds simple but there's a lot more to it than just mixing components together.

That is why I use Zeolite 20% in my own "Ken's Mix" Zeolite does not break down at all where organics do so
http://www.cmzeolites.com.au/chem advises that CM zeolite has a CEC of 147

From below site we see that organic matter is 200 - 400
https://www.smart-fertilizer.com/articl ... -capacity/

"CEC, an abbreviation for Cation Exchange Capacity, refers to the amount of negative charges available on the surface of soil particles.
It gives an indication of the potential of the soil to hold plant nutrients, by estimating the capacity of the soil to retain cations, which are positively-charged substances.
Therefore, the CEC of the soil directly affects the amount and frequency of fertilizer application

. .

with inorganic mixes, chuck in some zeolite to hold the ferts in a readily available form.

Ken

Ive looked up the CEC ranges of different media.
Maybe for nothing though as Zeolite seems to be about the only commonly used inorganic media I can source locally down here (other than coarse sand and gravel - but the coarse sand has lots of fines in it).

If anyone has found diatomite/pumice/etc in Tassie I'd be interested to hear where. Getting bags shipped down costs more than the products themselves