AusBonsai

OK,
I have now aquired a reasonable quantity of all three known diatomite from maidenwell, Mount Sllvia and WA and hopefully correctly identified them(Thanks Ken and all who have helped). I have sieved and graded them.

Maidenwell and Mount Sylvia seem almost identical, right down to color (off white, some grey and black)
WA(Attapulgite) seems the same in everything except color(off white, bone, beige,and some brown)
All three sieved gave a loss of just 1 or 2% in very fine dust and silt.
All three seemed less than 7 mm unsieved and broke into 3 lovely grades for use in varying size bonsai.

Next will be the water holding test with Crushed Brick, Akadama, kanuma and perlite.(all the absorbent grit components shall we say).

Blue metal, Zeolite and gravels/sands could be evaluated differently.

Next; but not for about 6 weeks, will be a growing test of all mixes with some Ash seedlings. I will also put Osmocote into half and none in the other half.

Grant

Grant Bowie wrote: Sage Horticultural in Melbourne is stocking the Maidenwell diatomite. Just waiting for prices landed in Canberra and pick up in Melbourne. Anyone from Melbourne coming to Canberra before early September?

Grant

Thank's for the tip off. I see it is available in bags of 2-7mm which should be prefect for what I'm after. Unfortunately I'm not going to Canberra though.

Cheers.

They all seem to have some fines under 2mm but not all that much.

Grant

Grant Bowie wrote:They all seem to have some fines under 2mm but not all that much.

Grant

Thats what I found too
Mt Sylvia and Maidenwell are interchangeable in all respects I think

If you can get either then do so


Awsome Grant, I will be following your results closely

Ken