Lemon tree transplanted into Al's gritty mix

bananieru · Post by **bananieru** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 4:02 am

After loosing 3 lemon trees this winter (indoor) I started to look for alternatives and found Al's gritty mix 1-1-1. It looks like the overwatering was the problem.

Lucky a lot of stores sold this in the spring, found it for $20:

Soacked the roots in a bucket of water:

completely washed the roots; 75% was only wood chips.

created the mix as per this post:http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/loa ... 25011.html. The coin is a quarter.

and this is the final product

After a week it looks happy, so I repoted quite a few more plants, so far lemon trees (2), jade, bay leaf laurel, christmas cactus and one big epi. I hope to get rid of some bugs this way.
I did not see anywhere posted if you can keep your indoor palms in this mix.

Tavi

canadianplant · Post by **canadianplant** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 4:55 am

THat looks like a good soil. Ive almost killed a few indoor plants over watering in the winter. I let most of them go dry almost to the bottom of the pot. The only things that I have that absolutely cant be treated this way are Colocasia, Alocasia and bananas. I had to water them MORE in the winter, than in the summer (probably dry forced air heat).

Thats from Canadian Tire is it not? The one here had figs. I bought 2 out of the 4 they brought in

They had Lime Lemon, hibiscus, oleander and a few jasmines.

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 12:52 pm

Interesting post.

Nurseries/wholesalers use wood chips because they're cheap (usually free), and it's so light in the pot that shipping costs are reduced considerably.

Thanks for the good pics.
Looks like the bark might be pine?
and stones...got lots of those here

Barb

bananieru · Post by **bananieru** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 3:13 pm

I actually followed the 'recipe' from the link. I bought a big bag of bark from a nursery. It was called small pine bark, but the nuggets were still too big. I already made a deal to buy a chipper shredder from kijiji, I'll see how that one works. So far I used reptibark from pet store. Perfect size, but very expensive.

The granit is chicken grit. I found a farm store quite far (40 km from here), they had it. Everybody else I asked never even heard of it before.

The most difficult to find was the Turface MVP and the gypsum. The Turface was not expansive once I found the place, a wholesaler for turf products
http://www.plantprod.com/turf-en/Produc ... 6&CatID=36

Gypsum was very expansive, only Sheridan nursery had it. But getting in Sheridan nursery something else stick to my hand: for the first time they had cold hardy palms. Lots of them. This is what I came home with for $40

a beautiful pindo palm. I don't know how I'm going to take care of it

Tavi

lucky1 · Post by **lucky1** » Sat Jun 02, 2012 7:34 pm

You got a pindo that size for 40 bucks???

I got one half that size for 55.

Wow, great purchase.

Let us know how this soil mix works for you.
Barb

canadianplant · Post by **canadianplant** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 3:26 am

Never use reptibark. Ive seen whole pallets come in with mites and shipped it back to the supplier (when I worked at a pet store). THere are 3 brands, 2 of them were bad for the most part(the zoo med one was bad, I cant remember the brands of the other 2). IF youre looking for bark chips, order them from a reputable orchid supply store, or make your own.

Im not saying you have to redo all the plants youve done, just for future reference, dont use it unless its absolutely nesassary.