Re: [Aroid-l] commercial mixes- get real, learn how to grow!

Hi everybody,

 I agree with Derek about watering and also agree with the other comments
about drainage, soil composition, pot size, shape, and where you are
growing.....Experience is important and is something we all will get sooner
or later as long as we keep trying.  When I started growing over 30 years
ago, the first thing my boss at the large wholesale-retail nursery, Leo
Bicknese told me was " The most important person in the operation is the
person with the hose".  Words of wisdom from a very good grower.

Mike Bordelon

Botany Greenhouse
Smithsonian Institution
4210 Silver Hill Rd.
Suitland, MD 20746
301-238-1060

>>> derek@horticulturist.com 12/17 8:55 PM >>>
With all due respect to the companies and researchers who have done such
valuable work, all that matters is that you learn how to water. If you get
that wrong, you can blame the mixes, blame the weather, blame the size
pot,
but it is you who are to blame if things go wrong. A good commercial
grower
knows that it is his/her most experienced person who should be holding the
hose.

 

That said, the value of the research work has been in developing mixes
that
allow us to slack off in our observation of what is going on with the
plants, and give us a little slack.

 

Read your plants, learn how to water and if you only have time to grow six
plants properly, don't try to outdo your neighbour by growing two hundred.

 

I know, I killed off a bunch of my beloved gingers after switching to a
coir-based mix, and not realising what a bear it was to water properly.

 

Derek

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: aroid-l-bounces@gizmoworks.com
[aroid-l-bounces@gizmoworks.com] 
On Behalf Of hermine
Sent: Saturday, December 17, 2005 1:29 PM
To: Discussion of aroids; Aroid list
Subject: Re: [Aroid-l] Let's talk commercial mixes, eh?

 



Thank you for your indulgence!

-Ken Mosher


(deep curtsey) 
 Ok Ken, it is I who thank you and ask in advance for permission to post
your findings here and there on various lists where folks kvetch about
their
soil mixes, as an ongoing issue!
We also wonder if we need to crank up the concrete mixer to make soils. i
believe that all the locally available soil mixes are some form of
pulverized garbage, TV sets, dead lumber and detritus, and dyed different
colours to indicate what "natural" substances they might contain, based on
my requirements. (ie, dark brown dye for leafmold, and so forth).

hermine

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