Originally Posted by Snarkie

Activated/charged is the same thing. A gram of charcoal has the square footage in surface area, of a couple football fields. And you thought a cat having the same square footage as a ping pong table was amazing!

Needless to say, charcoal is very absorbent. If you don't fill those voids before you put it in the ground, it will suck all of the nutrients out the soil, as well as almost all of the water you add. So, you need to activate or charge it, by subjecting it to nutrients and moisture. Different wording, but it means the same thing. Inoculated is another word.

I could go on ad infinitum about this, so if you have additional questions, feel free to PM me, or email me via the addy on the redwood site. Unless inquiring minds want to know, in which case I'll share what I learned almost three decades ago, when first potting redwoods.