Sand. Which Sand?

Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)

13 years ago

Plan to mix it 50/50 with peat. Which sand is the right one? I have the choice of:

- Pool filter sand

- Play sand

- All-purpose sand

- Paver sand

- Desert sand

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Comments (5)

Suzi AKA DesertDance So CA Zone 9b
13 years ago
Peat is the problem. Any sand. Not peat!! Use Perlite, Diotameaous earth or Turface, pine bark fines, but NOT peat! Peat is the thing that dries and makes the water pool on top, drain down the sides, and NEVER get to the plant! It's OK if you are making a hypertufa pot, but for a soil... BAD!!
Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)
Original Author
13 years ago
But Janie said she uses a 50/50 mix of peat and perlite for her propagation boxes with a high rate of success. I gotta do what Janie did!
Here's a link to the famous thread: Janie's Easy Propagation Chamber
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@mesembs Both, into the soil and as a top dressing. I do have plenty of turface fines. but I wasn't sure if they would hold too much water? It's definitely worth a shot. I use it now for leaf propagation. gardengal48 The only thing my store had was paver base and it was black. I didn't know what material that was. The "step 2" paver base looked just like play sand. My BBS didn't have anything other than those two so I figured I'd order it and have what I needed shipped to the store. The only thing with that is, I'm ordering sight unseen so I have no idea which one to pick. Thank you for the mention of Quikcrete AP sand. I saw that online on HD's website. I can have that shipped to store. Is it THIS one? You can see HERE that the Sakrete Multi-Purpose looks just like play sand so that made me question the Quikcrete All Purpose sand. This is why I asked you guys for a specific brand. Who knew it would be this hard to find sand? HA! I went down to the greenhouse and looked at what I brought up from the creek a while back. This is what I have and now that I look at it again, it might work. It does look a tad large but those tiniest pieces look just about right. I could sift that and see what I come up with? Thank you both tremendously!!
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origami_master
13 years ago
the peat has to stay moist. whenever you let it dry out, it forms a crust and repels water. In the propagation chamber, because the lid stays on most of the time, and because of the reservoir in the middle, the peat will never (or should not) dry out. When I use sand, I use washed play sand - any type or sand should work. The chamber uses the same principle as the 'Forsythe pot' only it has a cover to better retain humidity.
oregonwoodsmoke
13 years ago
Just be sure that the sand you get did not come off of the beach. If it has sea salt in it, it will probably kill your plants.
oregonwoodsmoke
13 years ago
If you happen to be in an area where you can buy decomposed granite, that works well, because it is course grained.

Your sand is for drainage, so the fine sand is less useful than a larger grained sand (if that helps).

I just mixed up a batch of sand with coir and a little bit of Miracle Grow potting soil. It looks nice, but this is the first batch, so I don't know yet how it works.

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Sand. Which Sand?

Comments (5)

Suzi AKA DesertDance So CA Zone 9b

Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)
Original Author

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Sand. Which Sand?

Comments (5)

Suzi AKA DesertDance So CA Zone 9b

Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)Original Author

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Carol love_the_yard (Zone 9A Jacksonville, FL)
Original Author