Specialty Gardening: How the Growth of Plants is Limited, 1 by tapla

tapla wrote:
Lisa's correct. You don't need a soil that's alive at all. If you bet me, I'll grow a perfectly healthy plant in nothing but broken glass to prove the point. Container culture is soo much different than growing in the garden. If we were discussing our gardens & beds, I'd be on Speedie's side, but container culture is much closer to hydroponics than growing in the garden. I've posted hundreds of pictures of perfectly healthy plants, all brought along in a soil that is 2/3 inorganic and using nothing but 1 synthetic fertilizer. In fact, I don't WANT to feed my (container) soil. Large populations of microorganisms simply break the soil down faster, causing structural collapse of the soil. The MOST important aspect of your soils isn't the nutrition they supply, that's an insignificant consideration because you can supply everything from a bottle or box, it's the soils structure; more specifically, it's how well it maintains a favorable volume of air in the soil and adequate amounts of water WITHOUT that soggy layer of saturated soil at the bottom of the container (the perched water table). Simply put, saturated conditions kill roots and impair root function and are probably the number one limiting factor you guys are dealing with. You would be amazed at how easy growing is when you use a quality soil.

This is what I grow all my houseplants in, and it has only a small amount of bark as an organic fraction ...... and the only reason for using the bark is because it's less expensive than the other two ingredients and I use a LOT of soil - hundreds of pounds each year (because of all my bonsai repots).

Al