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Predicament with Potting Mix

16 years ago

My sister's son just planted 5 bareroots roses for her yesterday and she ask me to come and look at her new rose garden. Well when I got there I saw a couple of half emptied bags of dirt next to the rose bed and when I read the bag it said Potting Mix. I ask her if this what he used to put the roses in the ground and she said yes. So here I am to ask for all of your advice, can she leave these roses in the ground with the potting mix or does she need to pull them all up and put them back in with a different type of soil? I told her not to worry and that I would help her.

oh yes too, the potting mix does have fertilizer in it. Will this also be a problem?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

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Comments (4)

paparoseman
16 years ago
If the holes were dug for the roses and the roses planted with just the potting mix it will cause the roses to sink over time as the organic material breaks down. It the potting mix is mixed with the dirt from the hole it should not be a problem. It would help if there was some bone meal or other amendments added to the hole under the rose.

Lance
ramblinrosez7b
Original Author
16 years ago
Thanks Lance,

It turns out that some dirt from the garden was mixed in so we are just going to leave them as is. No ammendments were added but will probably add later.
Again thanks so much for your help.
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I am thoroughly disgusted with peat. It breaks down, compresses, rapidly decomposes into a solid rock like substance unless large amounts of vermiculite and perlite are added, and that makes it extremely difficult to maintain moisture in the pots. I am watering everyday and sometimes need to water twice a day. Wick watering is not an option because of how I display my plants and also because of rapid evaporation. I need a heavier soil that does not retain moisture like peat does. Peat also is devoid of any nutrients, does not retain nutrients so fertilizing is more the art of hydroponics rather than soil based science. I don't have garden loam this being Arizona rock and sand desert soil. Any suggestions? I can get well rotted manure, blood meal, bone meal. Anything else necessary?
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karl_bapst_rosenut
16 years ago
The fertilizers in those mixes are usually diluted pretty well so I don't think that'll be a problem.
reg_pnw7
16 years ago
The fertilizer is not going to be the problem. The problem is going to be, if they used mainly potting mix with just 'some' soil, then basically the roses have been planted in straight peat, in a 'pot' made of garden soil, with no drain hole.

Whenever you change soil texture, the top layer will not drain into the lower layer until the top layer is completely saturated with water. It does not matter what the relative drainage properties of the two layers are. This is a big problem when you dig a planting hole and refill with something of a different texture from the rest of the soil. The roses are basically sitting in a bucket of water now.

You do not say what kind of soil the garden has. I imagine the Jersey Shore area has sandy soil? but that's just a guess on my part. Some peat mixed into sandy soil is fine. A hole in sand backfilled with peat is not fine. Peat, once wet, stays wet and can drown the roots. Once dry, peat stays dry, and the water will run off the peat without wetting either it or the roots growing in it. Peat works fine in containers, especially in a nursery environment, where the plants are watered regularly and the peat is not allowed to dry out, and where the containers all have good drainage. So most potting mixes are made of peat. Fine for pots. Bad in the ground.

Unless they only used a little bit of potting mix for each rose, I'd replant them toot sweet.

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