Re: CULT: potting mix

In a message dated 9/6/2007 8:29:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,  
lmann@lock-net.com writes:

<<Good point tho - I'm so used to gardening in rocks or perlite  in pots 
and mild winters, where frost heaving is minimal, except for  <very> 
small plants (i.e., quarter inch rhizomes), that I hadn't  thought about 
it. Rather than rocks, if needed, I might use water filled  cola bottles 
- dampen temperature swings while anchoring rhizomes.   I'll bet once 
this stuff freezes, it stays frozen, well insulated, like  frozen wet 
sawdust or manure.>>


What it may do, if my overly light bed is any indication, is  sort of fluff 
up as it freezes--expanding frozen  moisture-- and become an icy crystaline 
porosity. Bad  description, but I can't do better. In rocks, I favor river jacks  
about the size of an egg, up to the size of a hamburger patty. I just  move 
them around as I need them and if I don't need them I pile them near the  bed 
in a Zen sort of way.

<<We haven't had enough winter to heave anything for the last  3 years, and 
hardly a trace of snow.  But there was that winter where  it hit 25 below 
zero and another with 2 1/2 ft of snow...
 
It must be very frustrating and demoralizing. You are overdue for  moisture. 
We are overdue for some winter, too, but I am going to be  careful what I wish 
for because we typically get those evil Mid-Atlantic  ice storms that tear up 
the landscape and cause such misery. We got down to  around 10 or so last 
winter, and I lost some things that I did not expect to  loose. I don't want any 
of that -25 nonsense. That is serious tree  killing weather. 

<<I will take your suggestion and dose them with some dilute  water soluble 
complete with trace elements.  Or maybe some dilute  'Super Bloom' 12-55-6.
 
Actually the latter sounds not bad. I have a little container of  something 
called Blooming and Rooting Formula with numbers like that and  I almost 
mentioned it to you. I use it on my Alpine Strawberries, mostly, and  pansies. 
 
Just watch them, and the weather. It seems to me that the bottom  line is you 
need to keep them going strongly long enough to get some  roots down, but not 
stimulate them too much. I think it is a pretty good  time of year to be 
doing this. 
 
Anner Whitehead
Richmond VA USA USDA Zone 7,  urban





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