Showing posts with label Soil Media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Soil Media. Show all posts

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Volcanic Potting Mix


The packaging says:
Volcanic ash
Peat & cocopeat
A bunch of stuffs and the most amazing thing is that it contains trace elements(thats what written on it, can you believe that?)

Anyway i notice there shld be a small amount of sand/pumice and small gravels that resembles indonesian burnt earth. It's one of the medias that i use for my own bonsai "soil" mix. Generally (1part of volcanic pot mix + 2parts indonesian burnt earth) or (1part volcanic pot mix + 1part indonesian burnt earth + 1part river gravels) will give you a pretty well draining mix. It's quite suitable for most shohin sized bonsai. It doesn't retain too much and hold moisture for long, so you'll have to water 1-1.5day intervals, on hot/windy/warm days, best to water thoroughly everyday.

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Aquarium Gravels



Woots, finally went to get a pack of aquarium gravels(1-2.5mm) to test out for creating a better bonsai soil mix myself. These are labelled as 100% natural river gravels and it says from "America" which im not very sure about that though. Its always best to sieve it to remove finer size gravels/dust which you dont want it to be there and afterwhich might give it a good wash and sun it for few days before using it for my smaller bonsai.

Reviews:
Here because the diameter are only approximately 1-2.5mm, so i only divide it into a rough portion of two sizes(mainly 2mm's and 1mm's). As you can see the ones on the left after sieveing are mainly 2mm's. From my sieveing experience, a pack of theses gives you estimated 80% the 2mm's and the rest 15% 1mm's and lesser and overall its quite clean, when your the whole bag out, you dont really see lotsa dust flying off niether during the sieveing process. Recommend it as a soil mixing media to greatly improve drainage as these are gravels and they are not porous and does not retain moisture nor break down easily. Dmg: $12/10kg pack