Dishsoaps are a phytotoxic brew of ingredients, most if not all of which are poisonous to plants and should not be used on foliage, incorporated into grow media, or allowed to become a small fraction of the soil solution. The question isn't whether or not these harsh surfactants will cause damage, it's 'how much damage will they cause'. 'Dawn' contains at least 11 phytotoxic ingredients. Dishsoaps and other household cleaning products can destroy cuticular waxes in leaves, which compromises leaves' protective barrier against biotic pathogens and insect herbivory while also leaving the plant vulnerable to excessive water loss. Detergent solutions that make their way into the grow medium where they come in contact with root cells can quickly dissolve the lipid membrane surrounding cells, killing the cells and inhibiting water/ nutrient uptake. Hair cells growing as appendages off larger roots do the lion’s share of assimilating water and nutrients, and these very delicate cells would be the first casualty of any detergent in the root zone. When establishing new plantings with media containing dry bark/peat, measure out the volume of medium required to fill the pot. Put half of it in a bucket or tub, wet thoroughly, stir, add the dry fraction, mix well, wait 15 minutes. Water and free water vapor from the wet soil will quickly diffuse into the dry soil particles, 'breaking' any tendency of the dry particles toward hydrophobicity well within the span of 15 minutes, leaving the grower with a pot full of grow medium which is evenly moistened and ready to receive plants. Al

Oh boy, I can add fuel to the dead horse fire. "Mosser Lee -- brings your plants to life" purchased at either Lowes or Home Depot. "long fibered SPHAGNUM MOSS" tHIS PACKAGE CONTAINS 100% ORGANIC SPHAGNUM MOSS. uNLIKE PEAT MOSS OR SPHAGNUM PEAT WHICH ARE NON RENEWABLE, DEAD PRODUSTS DUG FROM THE EARTH, mOSSER lEE sPHAGNUM IS A RENEWABLE RESOURCE HARVESTED FROM PERENNIAL LIVE PLANTS THAT GROW IN THE RICH wISCONSIN MARSHLANDS." Ooops, forgot to take off my cap lock. Now that I read it, I guess it's not even 'peat,' which by their definition is dead? We placed this moss in an aquarium with some pearlite and gave it several gallons of distilled water. Various Venus Flytraps, Butterworts, Sundew, and Pitcher Plants were placed still in their own pots with holes, but snuggled down in the moss so they think they are in a bog with the constant wetness. We put on typical aquarium grow lights over a glass top that I forget to turn off most of the time. It took a few months and one day my son pointed out some moss strands that looked kinda green. It's been up over a year now and some of the little butterworts have been overgrown and now they are lumps under thick green moss. I know this isn't soil related, but the sundews are amazing and sooo beautiful, especially with a magnifying glass. They have hundreds of leave hairs, each with a tiny sparking drops of sticky nectar. Yeah, it's a bog garden inside. A couple of times I've left out a banana and apple to rot inside a big cup, and he slaps a top on it and shoo's the fruit flies inside the terrarium so that they land on the plants. The next day the leaf has curled up over them. It spoils the looks of it for a little while, but ya know, they gotta eat. The fruit then goes outside to the compost pile.

Laurie, the spagnum peat moss is useless in the soil, since I am guessing that you want to plant it in the ground, right? What is your soil like? If clay, (which is orange) you have to add composted manure in the soil real good, a nice amolunt of space for the plant. Composted manure is organic matter and it will help with drainage which is what the gardenia needs. You can put a fertilizer on it if you want, you can add it to the soil when you mix the soil with the composted manure. You dont have to really. Then you must apply pine mulch all around the gardenia, but not up to the stem of the plant, to conserve moisture for it. If your soil is sandy, again, add composted manure all around where you are going to plant it, mix in real good with the sandy aoil and mulch real good with the pine mulch. If the gardenia protests a little after you plant it, don't get upset, they protest occasionally by their leaves turning yellow, but they will get green again. Don't plant in a full sun area, sun in the morning, but not in the heat of the day. Good luck, this time your gardenia will be fine. Just don't kill it with too much love, just water int he morning when the soil is dry by the roots. Gardenias are very resilient bushes.

Sphagnum peat, aka peat moss, is a common ingredient in many potting soils. Potting soils are really soil-less mixes of ingredients designed to accomodate the very specific needs of container grown plants. Peat moss tends to be very moisture retentive, generally of a very small particle size and quite acidic. For these reasons, it should be used sparingly in any potting/container mix. The primary concern of any potting mix is fast drainage and good aeration and too much peat in the mix compromises both of these issues. It is definitely NOT an ingredient I would include in a potting medium to be used for cacti or succulents. For the record, peat is the decomposed remains of various plant products - sedges, mosses (like sphagnum), reeds or assorted other bog loving plants. Sphagnum is a moss that is often used as a decorative item to top off planted containers or to line hanging baskets, etc. Sphagnum peat - or peat moss, as it is most commonly referred to - is the decomposed product, found widely in peat bogs in the upper northern hemisphere. Canada has the world's largest supply of sphagnum peat bogs.