material used as "soil" in purchased hanging baskets

Many baskets that are sold at box stores contain an odd planting medium. Or, odd to me. It holds water well but is very lightweight (a big advantage for shipping and handling) and is in a single mass sort of like soft styrofoam. I'm thinking it may be sphagnum moss with some ingredient to bind it together, but I would like to know what it truly is. It crumbles easily if you take a chunk and squeeze it. I've also seen caladiums in pots, but not hanging baskets, grown in this same medium.
Another advantage is that since it forms a mass, if the container is accidentally tipped over or upended nothing spills out, as regular potting mix or soil would.

Soil less mix and it seems to dry out quickly. I usually re-pot and mix a good potting soil with the soil less in the pot, adding the water crystals.

but what is it MADE OF?

Do you have a picture? I've never seen anything like that used in pots, everything I've looked at just uses regular potting mix.

unfortunately, I got rid of it last night when I replanted the hanging baskets for a friend. The original plants had died, and when I removed them I found this material that is like a soft, brown styrofoam but it disintegrates with a little pressure.

Next time I'm at Home Depot I'll have to take a look and see if they use that--I usually only look at the hanging baskets at the garden centers and I've never seen that, but maybe HD out here uses that too.

When you press on it, it feels like a soft styrofoam. It will lift out of the pot in one piece, and you can't see any roots.

Don't know ingredients but I have purchased several plants with this medium. I always replace with my own composed soil mixture and see the growth difference. At first, I couldn't understand why the plants weren't growing as rapidly as I would like and the watering would go right through the plant. I just repotted 10 of my plants yesterday . It seems that the grower uses this medium as I have found it on every plant purchased from this grower.

I can understand why the sellers would like this stuff. It is as light as a feather. You know how heavy real soil is, or even a soilless potting mix, and when wet it's even heavier. As you say, the water goes right through this stuff and doesn't add any weight. If a grower has truckloads of plants growing in this stuff, think how much less fuel it takes to make the deliveries. And then the people who load and unload the trucks and place the baskets or potted plants in the nursery for sale have a lot easier job. I'm keeping plants for friends who are out of the country, and they are just about dead, and I was trying to figure out why and that's how I came to be aware of this. Then I began to notice that at WalMart the sprouted caladiums they have are growing in this too.

I'm really intrigued now...I'm going to have to hit HD and WM this weekend and see if they have that at ours!

That 'stuff' they (nurseries) use is awful!!! Repot your plants in better soil mix and add water crystals, if possible, to keep the plant from drying out or, having to water your hanging pot(s) every day. The 'medium' they use is almost impossible to re-wet after it has dried out. One of my neighbors had a HUGE hanging planter of dried-out wave petunias sitting out in the alley by their garbage and they told me if I wanted it I could have it!!! The plant is at least 3 feet in diameter and is in desperate need of being repotted in a decent growing medium---once that is done it (the plant/flowers) should really be awesome!!!

Jan

ecrane, at the grocery store the other night I noticed that they had some orchids for sale that were in this odd medium. It was so dry that it had shrunk from the sides of the pot, and had broken into 3 or 4 chunks. There must have been some moisture trapped inside it, though, or else orchids can look good with virtually no water, because the orchids were blooming and looked happy enough. Since you have a scientific background, I'm hoping you can shed some light on this question that is going to dog me until I get an answer. I wrote down the name of the grower, but now can't find it. I was going to try to contact them and try to get some info.

dp72, it looks like mostly peat to me, and it definitely not a good growing medium for pots..........I always re-pot mine with homemade mixture. I'm sure ecrane's knowledge will put forth more info for us all.

Unfortunately I've never seen this material so I honestly don't know what it is--if I have time to run by Home Depot this weekend I'll see if they're using it in their pots and then maybe I'll have some ideas.

It crumbles like sphagnum. If the pot gets a bit dry one can lift the entire containings, as someone noted. Then it breaks downn into a powder when handled. It's probably watered with nutrients until shipped to a local retailer.

Wouldn't you think that once it dries out, the only way to wet it would be to submerge it in water?

dp72-

that was what I had to do to the petunias in the basket (submerge them) but it still dries out very, very quickly. "It" makes the planter very light but is not good if you want happy, healthy, flowering plants!

Jan

I think I mentioned that when I took my friend's baskets apart, I couldn't find the roots- they were so encased in that - STUFF. The shippers and people who handle them must love it, because it weighs about an ounce for a square yard!!!!!!!!!!!!

James

Hi James!

You got that right> STUFF !!!

When I remove plants from the planter, that are in this 'STUFF', I soak the rootball in water with some hydrogen peroxide and coax the roots apart. Some roots may break off but the plant will be much healthier after being repotted in a decent soil mixture. I use hp as it provides oxygen to those poor dehydrated roots.

Jan

Good going! Once or twice I've bought something that was "growing" (???) in this stuff, and I just put it in a pot slightly larger than this chunk that it was in, and kept it moist but not dripping wet, and the roots somehow found their way into the potting mix that I had added. I guess if roots can lift asphalt (or so the story goes) they can fight their way out of that whatever it is.

James

Haven't been to HD yet but I stopped by the local hardware store on the way home from work today and all their pots had regular potting mix. But I did have a thought--there's stuff called rockwool that is often used for starting cuttings, I know when I buy small plants mail order I can often still see the rockwool cube that the cutting was started in, and then they put the whole cube into a slightly larger pot and fill it up with potting mix. It seems like it might fit the descriptions here, and I believe that they make it in larger sizes too rather than just the tiny cubes for cuttings. Here's a webpage with some pictures and descriptions, see if you think this is your stuff or not. http://www.discount-hydro.com/productdisp.php?pid=359&navid=34 I think there may be some other foam cubes that are used for a similar purpose, if you scroll down a little on this link you'll see some http://homeharvest.com/seedstartingrootingmedium.htm This site also talks about rockwool, and if you scroll down it also talks about Oasis cubes and polyurethane slabs which could be what your stuff is too. http://www.gpnmag.com/Alternative-Hydroponic-Substrates-article5363

I buy all my plants at the big box stores 'cause there's no other choice in town. This subject is fascinating as I've never seen plants potted up in anything but regular potting mix at HD, Lowe's or WalMart. I sure wish someone could post a photo of what it looks like.

Karen

If I can remember, I'll take a camera to the grocery store and take a photo of the medium that orchid is planted in. You've never seen such a mess in your life.

I would love to see a photo. All the orchids I've seen around here come in either regular orchid mix or else in sphagnum moss. I can't imagine what that stuff could be.

Karen

I received a hanging basket this year with a fushia plant and that "Stuff" is what it was planted in......

I do know what likes this medium......birds like it to build their nests in.......I usually just let it hang from the roof of the porch and a bird will burrow out a hole and lay her eggs in it.....using the whole pot for her nest.....and it's up high out harms way (snakes)......

Last year I received another type of plant in that same "stuff" when I got the plant home, a couple of weeks later, I found bird eggs already in it....but the momma bird got left behind at the store...I bet she searched and searched for them.....the eggs didn't survive the cold spring nights. I took the whole basket of medium out and hung it in a tree for them to use during the winter.

Von

Von, what a surprising story!

I have not noticed this potting mix in plants around here yet, but I did find some information that might shed some light on it. Recently I have been going through back issues of Texas Gardener magazine and found an interesting article in the Jan/Feb 2005 issue about P/2 (pronounced P Bar Two) Organic, an organic vegetable business in Coupland, TX. It said that they were experimenting with a new organic medium made from the husks of coconuts that could be used as a stand alone medium or mixed with perlite. Since they cannot use pesticides, they were trying it in an effort to combat soilborne disease. It came from a supplier in Colorado in compressed blocks and they added water to it. 500 bags would fit on a pallet and it is so light that they could each carry 4 bags at a time as opposed to one bag of potting mix. The article said that the product had recently been listed by the Organic Materials Review Institute and allowed for use as a transplant medium in organic production.

I don't know if this nursery is still in business and I haven't seen a more recent update on this material, but it may give you a starting point for more research. Apparently this material was not meant for long term plant growth, but merely as a starting/transport medium to the consumer.

Is this material the same as "coir"? I keep seeing that mentioned in different threads, but don't really know what it is.

I'm familiar with the coconut stuff, I've used the Original Mulch Block which is larger chunks of it that you can use for mulch and they also sell it in a finer form called "Wonder Soil" and probably other brand names as well. Once it's wet though it isn't a block anymore, you mix it with water and then fluff it up and then it can be handled just like regular potting mix so I don't think it would behave how this stuff is described as behaving. And yes, it's the same as coir...although the coir that more people are probably familiar with is the stuff they use to line wire baskets with, but this is the same material just in a slightly different form.