AusBonsai

Andrew F wrote:

cre8ivbonsai wrote:Went and saw an excellent demonstration by Mauro Stemberger last night, and interestingly he plants his Yamadori straight into Pumice and or Perlite, in a position that gets a lot of water to the roots, but in full sun.

Is that for water retention or to circulate air to the roots better?

I'd suggest air, roots grow best in drier conditions.

Scott Roxburgh wrote:

Andrew F wrote:

cre8ivbonsai wrote:Went and saw an excellent demonstration by Mauro Stemberger last night, and interestingly he plants his Yamadori straight into Pumice and or Perlite, in a position that gets a lot of water to the roots, but in full sun.

Is that for water retention or to circulate air to the roots better?

I'd suggest air, roots grow best in drier conditions.

That the impression i was under, not to dismiss anyone elses info [not my intention] but perlite is usually a means to oxygenate the medium a plant is growing from [at least in the hydroponics world].

So perlite for oxygen and pumice for water retention, I'm keen to try this mix with a little bit of organic in the mix, maybe some peat moss for pH. Now to figure out a ratio

I have a huge old privet stump that i dug in about october last year. I dug it, washed the roots bare and (kinda) flat bottomed it, then straight into 50/50 perlite & pine nugget mix, it powered on so well in that mix i had to root cut in about march and straight back into the same substrate - IMO perlite is excellent for tree recovery, but not super good in pots because it washes away very easily. my

H

Ok so upon pondering my mix given my current experience and experimentation so far with mixes I have decided on the following.

40% pumice as my main water holding component and drainage/aerating media

10% zeolite for water and nutrient retention

25% worm castings

25% of the best premium organic potting mix I can find, with a high volume of composted bark and leaves for beneficial fungal growth. Cacti and succulent mix has a good portion of this but it still fairly small particles.

If anyone else has tried different potting mixes and had better success with come than others I would like to know, but as I said I want a good portion of composted bark and leaves for high fungal growth.

I would ditch the worm castings and replace it with the pine nuggets

Reason for ditching the worm castings?