Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
General Subjects => General Forum => Topic started by: mark smyth on February 24, 2012, 06:48:54 PM
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I needed to buy some top soil to pot on my recently acquired snowdrops and other plants.
I bought Westland Top Soil after years of not using it because I believe it isnt soil. The shop owner assured me it had changed. No it hasnt. It's heavy when wet but light in the hand. It looks like a mix a fine peat, sand and grit.
I then went to another garden centre and bought Evergreen Top Soil. It looks excatly the same. I added some to a plastic cup and added water. Very quickly grit and sand fell to the bottom. There is is small ?humous layer on top of the sand. There is a layer floating on the surface. 9 hours later it is still settling. In the morning I'll take a photo of the layers.
Today I bought soil from a builders yard. It looks like soil but the grit doesnt match. I'll take a photo tomorrow.
What are your experiences with bagged garden centre soil?
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Can't see the point in small quantities. I'd have got JI3 and added some grit.
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Westland so called JI is awful, sludgy stuff. I've just bought a dumpy bag of locally sourced compost from our Northumberland waste collection and its just super, and it is probably stuff I put in my wheelie bin two years ago lol.
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Comparing to what Mark? We need a benchmark "perfect topsoil" in order to evaluate. How should a perfect topsoli perform in the 'plastic cup and water test' please? I'll compare some of mine if you show me yours. ;)
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Like Chris says Westland JI is cr@p. To my eyes and hands it's just peat, sand and grit
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Ron when I buy soil I expect it to look like soil and not fine sieved peat. Tomorrow I'll take photos of Westland and Evergreen top soil.
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OK Mark. :)
Then we can see where we are. Thanks. ;)
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Can't buy JI here in New Zealand, and the bagged compost dries out instantly, so I buy bagged top soil and mix it with fine pumice and the organic compost in equal measures. Need to find a source of small rounded gravel as the equivalent in pumice just goes green.
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Evergreen
24 hours on and the layers have settled but the water is stained brown. I stirred it again and can tell you that the bottom layers feel like pure sand. The fork had trouble mixing the layers
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What is the difference between
TOP SOIL and POTTING SOIL
I thought it was the same
Roland
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Roland in the UK and Ireland potting soil would be called compost - seed compost, Ericaceous compost, multipurpose ..
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So what is TOP SOIL
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Top soil is supposed to be the layer of soil that is below grass roots in a field
http://www.blogdivvy.com/growing-vegetables/images/soil-layers.jpg (http://www.blogdivvy.com/growing-vegetables/images/soil-layers.jpg)
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Roland in the UK and Ireland potting soil would be called compost - seed compost, Ericaceous compost, multipurpose ..
Unless you are a horticulture student or lecturer apparently - Susan would tell you that these are referred to as 'substrates' and woe betide any student who calls them 'compost' even if that is what it says on the bag!
If you can get it - Keith Singleton in Cumbria makes the best JI I've seen and many of us in Cumbria and Lancashire buy it by the pallet load. Their grit is perfect too and far better than the garden centre stuff which is often too coarse for use in pots.
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I'd love to get some of that Keith Singleton stuff. Ron McB used it when we had our fish box sink day with the Bainbridges, its amazing stuff. Still pop up to Ron's to get the bags of grit they sell him. But not sure how much longer that will continue now his nursery is closed and he's becoming a hobby gardener like the rest of us. Sure will miss my trips up to his nursery. Untold treasures there when you look around.....
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Top-soil is a very "local" product, and can never realistically be a countrywide standard product. If I buy top-soil from the Bagshot area (near RHS Wisley) I expect to get mainly sand; if from Bedford area mainly an acid silty loam, incidentally the basis of the original John Innes composts. Unless you know where branded products originate your guess is as good as mine as to what you are going to get, and presumably they can alter that souce at will, as the term implies nothing more than the surface few inches of soil, depending on previous cultivation regimes.
My preferred JI type compost supplier went out of business a year or so back, so I use Arthur Bowers as the base for all my mixes now. It is close to what I remember of JI composts way, way back except for less grit and more very hard lumpy "peat" content.
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We would buy topsoil from a supplier of compost ingredients like bark, grit, peat etc and it had always come from local areas being developed for housing. The majority of the soil must be retained for putting back on site but some is sold off and is usually good quality soil. There will be an assortment of weeds in it though. Depending on what they are, it doesn't matter (easily removed annuals) or it matters a lot, (convolvulus, oxalis, sorrel, californian thistle.) You pays your money and you takes your choice but it pays to have a good look through it and pick up quite a bit by hand, before deciding.
I always add pine bark fines, some grit and composted pea straw to mine if it is available.
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I would use the word substrate as a general term for the stuff in which plants grow. Compost is broken down organic material which can be used as a substrate or used as part of a mix.
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I would use the word substrate as a general term for the stuff in which plants grow. Compost is broken down organic material which can be used as a substrate or used as part of a mix.
Exactly the point the lecturers are making Anthony and the distinction is clear enough when you think about it but the word compost is often used for bagged 'substrate' of all kinds. I bet even totally inorganic substrates such as used by some cactus growers still gets called 'compost' by some!
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I've set some of Westland's and Evergreen's 'soil' in the green house to dry out. I added Westland to water also. It looks identical to Evergreen's except there is more ?peat floating.
Should I write to both companies and ask what is in their bags?
Evergreen
http://www.evergreenpeat.com/display.asp?prodID=168 (http://www.evergreenpeat.com/display.asp?prodID=168)
Westland
http://www.gardenhealth.com/products/compost-and-growing-media/soil-improvers/top-soil/ (http://www.gardenhealth.com/products/compost-and-growing-media/soil-improvers/top-soil/)
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I would use the word substrate as a general term for the stuff in which plants grow. Compost is broken down organic material which can be used as a substrate or used as part of a mix.
Exactly the point the lecturers are making Anthony and the distinction is clear enough when you think about it but the word compost is often used for bagged 'substrate' of all kinds. I bet even totally inorganic substrates such as used by some cactus growers still gets called 'compost' by some!
Quite so Darren. Compost, to my mind, is something made from organic waste in a heap or bin. Another perfectly good word hijacked for use where there isn't a satisfactory alternative. "Can I have three bags of John Innes number 3 substrate" somehow doesn't trip off the tongue?
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Not come across this term before, so I just looked on Wiki and it says:
Substrate (building), Natural stone, masonry surface, ceramic and porcelain tiles
Substrate (aquarium), the material used in the bottom of an aquarium
Substrate (vivarium), the material used in the bottom of a vivarium or terrarium
Substrate (biochemistry), a molecule that is acted upon by an enzyme
Substrate (materials science), the material on which a process is conducted
Substrate (biology), the natural environment in which an organism lives, or the surface or medium on which an organism grows or is attached
Substrate (chemistry), the reactant which is consumed during a catalytic or enzymatic reaction
Substrate (marine biology), the earthy material that exists in the bottom of a marine habitat, like dirt, rocks, sand, or gravel
Substrate (printing), the base material that images will be printed onto
The stratum on which another geologic stratum lies
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I think of a "compost" heap, as a rotting down mixture of anything I throw on it. In the same way Garden Centre compost in a bag is a compost (composition) of mixed ingredients. Just we shorten the original word a bit.
I only wish big furry animals with long tails would not make their home in it. Reptiles are welcome, Ratty is not.
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A croc would be welcome? ???
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I think compost from composition is an extrapolation too far.
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I think I am Happy
that A company is making my own potting mixture
I just order 4-, 5-, 6 M³ Big Bags
and they make the receipt I want
I took some time
but now most of my bulbs grow well
Roland
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I just deal in wee bags at the moment. I couldn't even justify a hand turned cement mixer. :(
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Today I bought some John Innes 3 that was made by Westland. What a load a cr@p. It looks identical to their 'top soil' except it comes in a bigger bag. When I emptied the bag in to the wheel barrow the most noticeable thing was the amount of ?silver sand and how fine and 'fluffy' the mix is. I would have expected to see grit. A hand full felt light.
Forum members mention their favourite JI products. What does your favourite look and feel like
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It's funny.... I would never consider using top soil in a pot..... soil is for ground, potting mix is for a pot. The drainage of garden soil is all wrong for a pot, holes clog etc much more often. Potting mix is designed for the drainage etc that we are wanting in a pot. I'm assuming from your description above, that what we call potting mix is what you are calling potting compost?
Compost to me is broken down organic matter, like from a compost heap. broken down leaf litter etc, as others have mentioned previously. It is interesting how differently (and confusingly if you weren't aware of the difference) words are used in different places.
So what do you call the stuff from a compost heap, Mark? Or have you mentioned that and I missed it? (always a possibility! ::))
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It's just a shortening of "composted organic material, e.g. bark, garden waste etc., in a bag used for potting plants" to "potting compost".
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Anthony,
Thanks. "Potting Mix" to "Potting Compost" computes nicely! 8)
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It's a bit like trying to get my head round the word "candy" being used for chocolate in "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". Candy is to preserve fruit peel by making the sugar crystalline. I could cope with sugar sweets being called candy, but chocolate bars! ::) Roald Dahl would turn in his grave!
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It is interesting how differently (and confusingly if you weren't aware of the difference) words are used in different places.
I often get confused over what in the UK is usually called (spaghnum) moss peat and north Americans call spaghnum peat moss, but often gets abbreviated to peat moss. So what is the brown stuff used in potting compost/mixes called down under?
With Canadian blond peat and New Zealand spaghnum moss also being mentioned it all gets mixed up when describing the colours.
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what is the brown stuff used in potting compost/mixes called down under?
Composted bark.
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Moss peat is a brown composition up to 10,000 years old which is found under layers of sphagnum, a type of moss found on a moss (peat bog). Peat moss is a manufactured product made from decayed sphagnum. Is this naturally decayed or composted? Goodness alone knows why it is called peat moss and not moss peat?
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Top soil as such, is the top 15cms or more skimmmed off land about to be developed for housing, usually, in NZ. It used to be taken away by the skimmer and sold to the unsuspecting for their gardens, they unaware that it was full of oxalis, convolvulus, sorrel (Californian thistle in my last lot) or whatever. Now, the law requires that such soil removed must be retained, or a part of it anyway, and replaced in the original area. Basically though, top soil is a desirable product.
We can buy peat in bags or bales, compressed dusty stuff which is horrid and very hard to moisten. Most comes from the Hauraki Plains in the North Island. I avoid it like the plague.
We can buy Southland peat which has a more spaghnum-like texture, not so dusty and more easily wettable. Both are very expensive.
We can also buy small bags of dried (fawny coloured) spaghnum moss which comes from the West Coast of the South Island and is only harvestable under special licence, mostly for export to Japan. If I need spaghnum I scrape up what is growing under our pine trees, a different species from true spaghnum, green and soft and easy to re-establish around pleiones or wherever, if cool and damp.
As Rob says, we also buy composted bark, in my case pine bark fines which I use extensively in my potting/seed mix. Ideally this is composted (let lie in a heap) for at least 9 months but as more and more people want it, the composting time becomes shorter and as a local trillium grower says, sometimes "you can hear the birds still singing in it."
I guess most areas or garden centre chains have their own versions of these products. John Innes composts or mixes have never been available in NZ but the recipes are in L D Hills' book "Propagation of Alpine Plants" I think. Personally, I've never bothered.
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Please note spelling of sphagnum. Sphagnum spp. was used as a sterile dressing during world war one. I think I've seen dried New Zealand sphagnum for sale in Scotland for lining hanging baskets?
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Yes, spaghnum moss is well known as a sterile dressing in wartime and other circumstances when medical supplies are not available, but still not considered sufficiently sterile to be used as a wrapping for plant material entering NZ. Only vermiculite or clean (new) newspaper are acceptable to cushion bulbs or plants.
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Please note spelling of sphagnum. Sphagnum spp. was used as a sterile dressing during world war one. I think I've seen dried New Zealand sphagnum for sale in Scotland for lining hanging baskets?
New Zealand has its own species of Sphagnum, so perhaps it doesn't need any more?
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Please note spelling of sphagnum. Sphagnum spp. was used as a sterile dressing during world war one. I think I've seen dried New Zealand sphagnum for sale in Scotland for lining hanging baskets?
I would have thought Scotland would have enough of its own sphagnum.
I topped up my own stock yesterday from a local nursery, it's English. ;D
( now wearing narrower stilts ::) )
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( now wearing narrower stilts ::) )
Friends : we hope for photos sometime soon of Fred on his custom made stilts.. which will bear a remarkable resemblence to knitting needles or chopsticks. :o :-X
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( now wearing narrower stilts ::) )
Friends : we hope for photos sometime soon of Fred on his custom made stilts.. which will bear a remarkable resemblence to knitting needles or chopsticks. :o :-X
The mind boggles. :o
http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/1999/06/15/rural-sphagnum/
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No idea what the stilt references are intended to mean?
Anthony,
I like the article.... a few horticultural phrases nicely worked into the text as they went. 8)
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No idea what the stilt references are intended to mean?
See here... for references to overcrowded garden spaces....
http://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=8320.msg241708#msg241708 ;D
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Thank you. Makes sense now.
And also thanks for reminding me that I got part way caught up on that Trillium topic, but hadn't finished the last few pages...... will have to get back and have a look at it now. 8)