1)top (12:00) pourus pumice 2)right side (3:00) sifted for size scorsa 3)bottom (6:00) dry stall **avalable at farm feed and supply stores 4)left side (9:00) poultry grit ** avalable ay arm feed and suply stores 5) Center composted gravel * Also sifted for size having different shapes and sizes of granite in it including courser sifted SAND. Aqaruim gravel in this pic would be okay to use primarlay as a top dressing and maybe a piece or two ( small amount) in a grity mix soil but it's just to polished or not pourus enough to be relaiable. Personaly I wouldn't use the AKA river polished materails as an ingrediant in part of a gritty mix. There proberly is a Ph balance use or a potted plant application ( Proberly a few 1000 if I had to guess.) for it but I hadn't used what the google pic shows in anything here. Keep it simple. Even in 100 % pourus sifted sand a lithop is at a five star Ritz Carlton when potted here. While out grit shoping think sizeable by sifting materails that are both pourus and sharp. This post was edited by nomen_nudum on Thu, Jun 26, 14 at 16:04

BP - I read through your thread and thought I'd mention a couple of things. First, all oil-dry products aren't created equal. Some are less appropriate because of the particle size gradation, and some are inappropriate because of their instability (turn to clay after prolonged exposure to moisture). Freeze a tablespoon of the screened product in a plastic cup overnight. If it's stable when it thaws, it's ok to use. Screening the fines out of your ingredients is a practice that retains the important macropores, the spaces between the particles. The more interparticular spaces filled with air and the fewer with water, the more approval your plants will show for the effort of screening. I/ve done some side bt side tests of various plants grown in a 5:1:1 mix of CHCs:perlite:peat vs the same ratiuo of pine bark:perlite:peat, and there was a significant difference in growth rate, vitality, and appearance with the CHC mix coming in a distant second. You won't need the extra water retention afforded by the CHCs, so I'd stick with the bark. CHCs are very high in K, and potentially very high in soluble salts (if processes with sea water). All CHC products are very low in Ca, potentially high in Mn (which can interfere with iron uptake). Several studies have also shown that the significant presence of phenolic allelochemicals (inhibits growth of other plants) in fresh coir can be very problematic for a high % of plants, causing poor growth and reduced yields if yields are a consideration. CHCs high pH (neutral is too high) also eliminates dolomite as a potential liming agent. Al

A long time ago I read about lava rock having a high fluoride content. I now found this info at simplyhydro.com: -- Lava rock has successfully been used used in hydroponics for many years...but less so now, due to other alternatives which do not have sharp edges that cause damage to the roots. Also due to chemically treated lava being hard to find in many areas of the country. -- (This makes me want to it use much less than I have before...) I have crunched up lava with a sledge hammer but found it tedious. It does make contrasting topping for bright succulents. Re: "no peat" mix. I read about peat being acid and consequently inhibiting fungus. I also read about most cacti and succ.s not being too particular about the ph of the soil. So I grew some smaller echeveria types and a couple of others in pure peat, with a wick in water, like African violets. Some are going on 4 years now. I've been amazed. Lost a couple - likely because that peat had some soil, too, which provided a fungus foothold. I followed up on "chicken (granite) grit" from another blog. Yup, the local farm supply had it. Cool stuff. The Rockies in a bag. Heavy, but a lot of people recommend it: 1 part grit, 1 puffy stuff, 1 fine peat.

Hi Lynn: Thank you for sharing your experience with gypsum. EarthCo. also recommended gypsum for my soil ... never mind that I'm next to a limestone quarry, plus a gypsum plant. Bluegirl wrote in another thread on how she broke up her clay with gypsum. I have similar success using gypsum to break up my rock hard-clay. I get gypsum for $7 for 40 lbs. bag at my local feed store. It's quite acidic (has a higher % of sulfur), and burns my hand. So I always wear gloves when handle gypsum. The Encap sulfur sold at Menards $6 for a tiny 1 lb. bag contains a good % of gypsum .. I no longer buy that sulfur bag, since gypsum is cheaper, plus U. of CA at Davis documented that 1 lb. of gypsum is equivalent to using 5 lbs. of sulfur. I agree with their research. I put tons of that Encap sulfur on my clay ... did nothing, until months later, and tons of rain (at pH 5.6) ... then the soil finally crumble. With gypsum, it takes a few days to make my clay fluffy. Many sites and U. of Extensions alert that superphosphate harms the mycorrhizal fungi that help roots to obtain phosphorus & other nutrients from soil. However, Roses Unlimited recommended putting triple super-phosphate NPK 0-52-0 in the planting hole. So I put that stuff inside the planting hole of Queen of Sweden, plus sulfur. The flowering is 1/2 the rate of other roses without superphosphate. That's for 2 consecutive years. Last month I dug up Queen of Sweden, the root is woody & fibrous and reached down below. But there's an absence of secondary roots, or cluster-network. I didn't put superphosphate in Honey Bouquet, and when I dug that up, there's the fibrous brown woody main trunk, plus a vast network of secondary roots. Honey Bouquet gives 3 times more bloom than Queen of Sweden, at 1/5 the size. One of the danger of superphoshate is it also contains the toxic chemical cadmium, that would be poisonous is absorbed in edible plants. Plants can only utilize a small percentage of given phosphorus, the rest is quickly bound up with other elements in alkaline condition. When I use superphosphate in soluble form, as in MG Bloom Booster, it's really hard to dissolve. So I put vinegar in the bucket ... yet I still get phosphorus crystal stuck at the bottom. See below link of Australian Agricultural field study that showed APP (ammonium polyphosphate in fluid form) surpasses granular phosphorus. There's another Australian study that showed that the use of granular phosphorus over a span of 5 years did not increase their wheat yield much. I tested SOLUBLE Bloom Booster NPK 10-52-10, similar to APP, and the result was very good, if I use at 1/4 dosage. Too much chemical phosphorus can burn roots. Just a little bit helps roses with wimpy roots that can't acid-phosphatase, such as Jude the Obscure. Most roses don't need Bloom-Booster, they can secret acids to unlock phosphorus-tie-up in alkaline clay. It's the wimpy own-root like Jude the Obscure that has to be spoon-fed due to my alkaline water at pH 8. I use soluble fertilizer for pots, since pots leach out nutrients with our rain. In my alkaline dolomitic clay, no need for chemical fertilizer. My clay is fertile, with plenty of bacteria to fix nitrogen (air is composed of 78% nitrogen). I don't fertilizer my 26 trees, yet they are taller than 2-story house, plus lose leaves every winter. See picture below of my center garden, zone 5a Chicagoland: Here is a link that might be useful: APP fluid fertililzer surpasses granular phosphhorus This post was edited by Strawberryhill on Sun, Dec 8, 13 at 14:53