What type of sand is used for propagation?

What type of sand is used for propagation of cuttings? I know there is play sand that comes in large bags. Bought many bags of that when my kids were little but they are now in their 40's. I know there is a builder's sand. I think that has something to do with mixing with cement or mortar.

I don't want to buy a 25-40 lb. bag of sand. Can't vermitculite or perlite be used for propagation purposes? I also have spaghnum peat moss here.

There used to be some type of sand that you would use when making terrariums where you would layer it and then put a plant..something like a succulent in there. Remembering something about different colors of sand and it was layered, like an ocean wave design. Maybe Craft stores sell small bags of sand for this purpose(making the terrarium). Could that sand be used for propagating cuttings?

I wonder if aquarium sand would work or if it would be too fine. It does come in smaller bags and would have to be ok for fish at least.

I'm sure somebody that knows more than I do will chime in and we'll both know the answer then. I think we need Horticultural sand. but I don't know what size bag it comes in.

I use the play sand with great results....it's like $2 a bag at the local hardware store

This message was edited Jul 23, 2011 8:06 PM

DH buys bags of sand every winter to put in the back of his pickup - helps with traction on snow and ice. At the end of the winter, we always try to think of how we can use the sand. I've thought of using the bags to slightly terrace my hilly garden to control the erosion but I haven't put that plan into action. Now I wonder if the type of sand in those long cylindrical bags would be appropriate for cuttings or seed starting.

I don't reallyy know what's best for cuttings. But the finer the sand, the more water and less air it will allow to reach the roots.

Coarser sand is better for seed-starting if you wnat to avoid soggy soil.
My THEORY (not experience) is that it would also be better for cuttings.
Ifyou use very coarse sand for cuttings, you might wnat to add just a little peat or vermiculite to be sure to hold plenty of wtaer between waterings.

Technically, when sand grains get as coarse as 2 millimeters in diameter (1/13" or 5/64"), we should call it "grit" or even "very fine gravel". Thus I'm really advocating "grit", not sand.

#2 chicken grit is my favorite. Crushed, screened, washed granite.
Grain size around 1/8", irregular shapes and "fast" drainage. Lots of air!

A place that sells concrete lawn ornbaments and doo-dads should have all kinds of crushed screened rock. If you show up with some cut flowers or a planter, they might just let you go out back and scoop some into a pail.

Ditto gravel pits or builders' supply houses. Anything you buy at Home Depot will have lots of very fine sand along with maybe some medium-coarse sand. If you use that fine stuff, make sure that your cuttings are getting enough air to their roots.

One thing about big bags vs small bags. I finally found chicken grit at a farm co-op. They had "the warehouse" out back, and a yuppie-style store out front. I could buy a small, pretty-pretty re-closeable bag of chicken grit out front for $9 for two pounds.

Instead I bought the 50 pound bag for $10! The kid put it in my trunk for me, and you might need help getting it out of your trunk, but any leftover grit will do great things for drainage in the soil.

It is MUCH eaiser to get the heavy bag out of the trunk if first you buy two light bags, say mulch, and the heavy bag is on TOP.

Corey

Good trick with buying two bags for the trunk! I did buy some grit in a small bag, using it for making up some potting soil. The feed store did have the bigger bags but at the time I didn't have storage space or immediate use for that much.

Storage space is an even harder problem to solve than "those things are HEAVY!" I would rather shovel a pile into a wheelbarrow than deal with floppy 50-pound bags.

Once I splurged on a whole cubic yard of very very coarse sand, delivered (for amending rasied bed soil while I build up the organic content). Several houses down from me, someone has a FANTASTIC flower garden, just incredibly beautiful and 500 times nicer than mine. But just this once, I had her admiration and envy - she came over and looked at my pile of snad and enthused over it for several minutes, running her hands through it, ohhh-ing and ahhh-ing.

We gardeners are just plain wacky. Going crazy over sand, grass clippings and manure.

I'm just constitutionally unable to pass up a bargain where something is 5-10 times cheaper per pound. If you have a nearby neighbor far gone into gardening demntia, maybe they would trade some grit for compost, or cuttings or root divisions.

Corey
Really Into Grit

Alas - I'm the only "nut case" on the block. DH says I'm the only woman he knows that would ask for mulch for Mother's Day.

>> the only woman he knows that would ask for mulch for Mother's Day.

FFFPPPTTT! What could be better? Manure? Compost? Biosolids?

(I'm getitng hungry - time for lunch!)

Corey

All this talk about sand for propagation reminds me that I need to start thinking about taking some cuttings. DD just moved from TN to MI this past week and finally plants from my garden will survive in her future garden without heat and drought stress. Not a good thing to put IN shade plants into hot, dry TN shade.

I've used vermiculite for rooting since I was a kid in FL (1951-53). It 's almost always available at the Big Box stores here (HD & Lowes) in medium bags, now $4.95 I think -weighs almost nothing. I've seen some writeups suggesting mixing peat and vermiculite or peat and sand as rooting media. Vermiculite seems to drain well yet retains moisture in the little granules.


PS- even though my ID on the left says Wake Forest, NC, right now I (and Pepper) are at our house in Port St. Lucie, FL. I put some vermiculite in a pot today to root some hibiscus. I spent the morning pruning my 2 mango trees.
Paul

This message was edited Oct 7, 2013 7:26 PM

I had to search around for vermiculite without fertilizer. Sounds crazy but Miracle Grow wants to put fertilizer in everything they sell. (Don't get me started!) I do use a blend of vermiculite, perlite and peat moss to start some things.

I would suggest trying to remove some of the fine sand from mixes, if they don't seem well enough aerated, or they hold too much water.

You can use window screening (usually 24 wires per inch) to remove really fine dust. Lay the flexible window screening over 1/2" or 1/4" hardware cloth, or maybe chicken wire.

Some kitchen strainers are as coarse as 18 wires per inch, but others are 30 mesh.

Now I'm into screened pine bark in sizes around 1-5 mm. Fibers, shreds, chips, nuggets or chunks.

Screened bark holds much less water than peat or vermiculite, but it holds more air than almost anything else. I think it holds more air because it is always irregular, and it can be very coarse.

Thus fine sand with some bark shreds would be better aerated than fine sand alone.

Very coarse grit or very small gravel might not hold enough water, but if you added a few bark fibers and small shreds, it would hold both water and air.

P.S. One time I bought four cubic yards of soil, delivered. When they came to the door for a check, my SO pretended not to know ahead of time and yelled "You paid over $100 for DIRT?!!?"

She just wanted to give them something to chuckle about as they drove home.

Good idea about screening the sand. I do have a set of gardening sieves I can use (bought mainly to screen compost on a small scale).

There also is 1/8" hardware cloth. You can also get the close to the same effect by laying one piece on 1/4" hardware cloth on top of another, but offset half the width of the mesh both vertically and horizontally.

I like the "offset" idea. I have tough nylon waxed twine that would let me tie them down pretty well.

I agree that 8 mesh hardware cloth would be great for bark. Maybe 10 or 12 mesh for sand.

i wonder if these MSC links are still accurate?
page 1748:
http://www.mscdirect.com/FlyerView?pagelabel=1748&search=52427879&contentPath=/sales-catalogs/big-book

http://www.mscdirect.com/browse/Raw-Materials/Wire-Cloth?navid=12101680&rdrct=Wire%20Cloth



or
http://www.mcmaster.com/#wire-cloth/=ov9j8x



This message was edited Oct 9, 2013 7:00 PM