I placed an order several weeks back from a nursery on line and today I gave them a call for it is not here.. Well my fault my email changed and then with not working and being out in the yard playing recovering from surgery I hardly ever use or answered the phone :-( but anyway they wanted to let me know that it would cost almost 50 dollars to ship me the pumice I ordered, I ordered ten small bags.. well I told them I really like that they did not just ship... So no pumice this way... So today my cutting that I repotted about 3 weeks ago because I wet them to much and I would have lost allot of them if I did not repot... Well anyway... they are not sturdy in the pots because now I am afraid to water them LOL so today I put what I had here on top of the dirt to hold the plumeria in place and make the pot stay also.. I used crushed marble.. I will not put these outside for it is not warm again here so just for now... Does anybody else know what I should or could use? Thanks and sorry I can't explain what I mean very well.. I am brain dead... Susan

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

Thanks @breathnez and @andy for the link. But yeah even though they do ship to Canada (which I'm surprised, most Amazon.com items don't even ship to Canada), shipping cost is $80+ the cheapest, so I don't think I can go for that... @leslie I'm just trying it out, I don't really have too many things to repot at the moment. If it's legit then I'll buy more. I know it's super small quantity, but so far I have not seen Pumice elsewhere.

@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!!