The sifted soil

[dick benbow]

Started yesterday to sift my soil for satsuki's. Opened up a bag and found three sizes. Small, med and large. The larger size i lay on the bottom of the pot for drainage. The mid sized I use to repot the azalea, and the small is a top dressing.

My pine soil I use double red line akadama. I Sift it but mix it with the same medium sized soil known as Kiryu. The main effort here is to get rid of the dust. I lay a layer of perlite down for drainage then mix the akadama and Kiryu
for the soil to plant the pines in.

Anyway, repotting starts end of the month so I have to get busy and start
sifting. All the soils i use for my good trees comes from Japan. There is a local mix of pine bark, red volcanic and perlite that I use for my quinces.

They have started blooming already as here in the Pac NW we have had the warmest january on record. Avg mean temp for day and night was 47 F.

I brought in a nice quince showing color yesterday to display in my tokonoma
along with a Violet companion plant. Looked nice for company and then back outside after they left...

[Robert]

Hi Dick,

Seems like I run just about a month or so behind ya here. Started sifting my soil here this week. My main stuff is Truface (MVP), pine bark, and lava, but the lava is hard to find in right size and it's so time consuming to crush down to size, do have an alternative,granite grit, but like the lava for its water and nutrient holding ability over granite. I don't layer anymore, use the same mix thru-out the pot. The shallower pots are near impossible to layer anyway.

Have you ever used sphagnum moss (long fiber) in place of the pine bark. Seems like a few are going that way. They seem to talk up the Angle Hair Sphagnum from New Zealand as the one to use. Not sure of the ratio compared to bark but with the water holding ability of sphagnum sure it would be much less.

Robert

[dick benbow]

I use a "white" spagnum from overseas cause ours that grows free in the woods occassionaly creates some health issues so it is NOT worth the risk.
I use Spagnum for two reasons. As part of the soil mix to encourage rooting,
and as a topping when I change the direction on a tree and don't want part of it's root mass to die quickly because it's unearthed and vulnerable. Covering it with moss rubbed against the tinyest sifter screen to get fine pieces is what i use to protect the fine roots.

I have never used it as a soil medium, just and addendum to the regular mix to insure proper root stimulation.

[Robert]

Thanks Dick,

Think were talking about the same Sphagnum. The New Zealand and Chile are very light golden colored almost white. I may try some and see how it works out. Maybe with a maple since they like it more on the acidic side.

Robert

[dick benbow]

maples usually have relatively shallow roots and if you screen that spagnum down to little bits I would really think that would help them fill in nice and thick.

This year in my mix I tried Kiryu ( a type of small pepple/sand) instead of pummice. It was explained by my teacher that the pumice is so light it moves and Kiryu is heavy and does not.

always some new theory to try. I'm sure your golden/white spagnum from NZ is the same stuff!