Kanana

Not worth it to me to have to jump through this many hoops just to even get this product in my hand. If perlite does 80% of what PBH does then I['m happy with that. A huge 4Cu Ft. bag for $14 will last me a year and I can find it at the larger Landscape Supply place near me.

Even if I tried it and liked it, then I'm back to square one and I'm not going through that again, my time is too valuable for that nonsense.

ps. if you had to go through this much detective work to find PBH where you lived, would you keep trying and failing Aruzinski?

Kanana

I thought that was extremely high to pay $25 for shipping which is morre than the product I'd be buying which is more than the $8 a bag I saw other people paying at feed stores listed in threads on this site, but then when I checked my zipcode for 1 bag of PBH the shipping is UPS and $59.82!!!!! Are you kidding me???? No way Jose!

cincinnana

Lol..... Move on......Miracle grow is an awesome medium for growing plants for a backyard gardener.
A Pro like you should know.
.
Miracle grow...... by Hostafarian,
on Flickr
Really sorry you do not like it..

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Kanana

Miracle Gro is awesome now? I can't tell if you are trolling or not.

Funny how you glossed over the link I left specifically for you to read in post #58. There are 170 reviews of MG soil products almost 99% are horrible reviews. Did you even read any of the reviews?

I started reading the reviews earlier and started from most recent review in Oct 2017, and I am back to the year 2014. From the amount of plant kills just from the soil used by experienced growers should be enough, but then there are the cases of a woman whose dog needed $4000 worth of vet bills due to the dog swallowing mulch that was mixed in the bag, people contacted poison oak and poison ivy from the bag and they live in non native areas of the US where there is no way it could be from anything else, to the sludge like consistency of some bags, the stick and smell of petro chemicals, a dirty hypodermic needle in the bag, broken glass, crushed metal fragments, rusty nails, bits of shredded plastic etc. etc.

I honestly can't believe there hasn't been a class action lawsuit against them after reading some of these reviews. What I really can't believe is someone on here that would actually promote this product.

https://www.consumeraffairs.com/home...racle_gro.html

Do me a favor, and read the reviews cincinnatti, then come back on here for your thoughts.

aruzinsky

Sorry. Maybe, I dreamed paying $25 shipping.

Tytaylor77

Around here in east/southeast Texas Earthgro potting soil by Scott’s is pure rice hulls with a wetting agent. And Scott’s Garden soil in the GREEN bag is also pure rice hulls. No wetting agent!

Walmart has both. Next time your there look around the ground below the bags. There is always some spilled. You will either see rice hulls or something else. It varies locally. I know in Washington state it does not contain any rice hulls. And in New York it does not contain any rice hulls! I’ve had friends report to me.

Next time your in a Walmart or any other garden center that sell Scott’s just look. It won’t take an extra 5mins.

On the MG. I will say last year (2016) i bought some yellow bags On clearance and wow i was amazed. Perfect composted pine bark and other bark. I loved it mixed with 50% perlite. This year (2017) i bought a couple bags and still have them! Total trash and a nasty wetting agent. So i can say it varies ALOT! Add enough perlite and you can fix anything lmao. If it works for you! Use it!

__________________

150+ Varieties!!. See profile for list. Help me add more!

www.bananapups.com

Kanana

Thanks for the heads up but I'll definitely check. Seems weird though they would sell Garden Soil and it's 100% rice hulls. I would think people would be pissed expecting a nice dark black soil and when they open it up it is the brown rice hulls. Thanks again.

Kanana

Is this the same Earthgro bag ? I just googled it and am reading the reviews on Home Depot's site. Sounds like most of the reviewers could be reviewing Miracle Gro, which wouldn't be surprising as I thought Scott's owned Miracle Gro too. The last review I read was someone from Texas like yourself and they said the bag was 100% clay@! Others said it was basically sand and stick, or sand and wood chips. I know I've tried it as fill dirt before and wasn't impressed not sure if I bought it at Home Depot, Lowes or Wamart but I know it wasn't rice hulls. I will check again today though. I'll even find an open bag to take some pictures.

EDIT: I read reviews of the Earthgro bag on Walmart's site. I saw this picture posted there:

https://walmart.ugc.bazaarvoice.com/...client=walmart

The person said the grass that was growing in the sealed bag was 5 inches. This refreshed my memory of when I had recently used it a few months ago. I had a few of these bags at one of my jobs, and I just needed to fill the soil level in 2 large pots. When I opened the bag it was like they mentioned where there was almost all roots and grass like I bought a chunk of sod. I was laughing actually and pretty shocked but since it was cheap soil and I was just using it for fill I didn't freak out. I just turned the grass upside down and buried it and it was fine but the soil itself was like mostly sand and sticky with clay. Not the loamy type of soil you expect when you get potting mix, this stuff was almost like concrete mix.

aruzinsky

From https://www.walmart.com/ip/Earthgro-...-Soil/16904048 :
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ingredients: This Product is Regionally Formulated from Organic Materials (Including One or More of the Following: Hypnum Peat, Forest Products or Compost) Sand, and Perlite. In California This Product is Regionally Formulated from Forest Products, Compost, Sand, and Perlite. In Georgia This Product is Regionally Formulated to Contain (77-87%) Aged Pine Bark, Sand, and Perlite. In Texas This Product is Regionally Formulated to Contain Aged Pine Bark, Sand, and Perlite.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

As I said before for MG, the quality depends upon where it is manufactured.

Kanana

And that's weird as it doesn't say rice hulls in the Texas location where Ty is located who said the Earthgro is 100% rice hulls and the Green Scotts Garden soil is 100% rice hulls minus the wetting agents. From what Ty described, it sounded like it contained no aged pine bark, sand or perlite. Strange.

cincinnana

Mychorrizea...
There are a few good threads.....
to boost your soilles mix....no matter what soiless mix you choose.

Great for small immature plants and banana Tc's

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cincinnana

Another mix for new members as well as established members
is a mix called Al's gritty mix.

This is a great starter mix and an accecptable transition mix for your better plants.

Toss in some mycorrhizae and this is a sweet soil for your small high value water stingy plants .

This mix is fast and well draining leaving great moisture retention for small roots.

I will say again......purchase and use what you can afford in your plantings.....then your gardening skills take over.



Al's gritty mix with charcoal
by
Hostafarian,
on Flickr

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aruzinsky

Don't you have problems with expanding banana roots pushing gritty mix over the top of the pot?

Kanana

Also as I said earlier in this thread, the ingredients for Al Tapla's Gritty mix is equally frustrating to find as the parboiled rice hulls are. I still never found crushed granite unless I wanted a whole semi delivering it from North Carolina to my house in Florida. I went so far one time to call a granite quarry in North Carolina and they said they don't deliver anything south of Georgia and that I was SOL.

obdiah

i will trade you a load of crushed granite for a month of warm weather ( above 32)
seriously crushed granite is just a type of man made coarse sand sub most any coarse sand in the mix

Kanana

Even finding course enough sand, I had to drive to Haines City to get mesh #14 IIRC was the preferred size for Tapla's Gritty Mix, and thats 4 hour drive roundtrip. After all said and done, it didn't work for me for peppers or tomatos as it was way too dry and I'd have to water my plants in full sun 2-3 times a day. Like I said nothing is ever as easy as just driving to HD or Walmart. I envy you northern people for this very reason.

One more thing I recall jumping through hoops to no avail was trying to get cocoa hulls which supposedly made a great mulch that stayed dark brown and had a high nitrogen content and was a natural bio degradable product that was from chocolate processing the cocoa bean at Hershey Pennsylvania. Good luck getting that in Florida without exorbitant shipping.

I would add Azomite to the list but somehow I got free shipping through Amazon when I ordered a year ago so I ordered 5 44# bags at the time in case they stopped carrying it.

cincinnana

No sir.

The soil level is 1-3 inches below the rim of the container.

The mix is pretty loose.
pine bark ,peat, charcoal and perlite hold the moisture.

The chicken grit adds the separation as well as the perlite.
Add an organic fertilizer such as Espoma Tomato tone ....And I am good.

Today I repotted some orchids with a fresh mix, roots were looking fine.
I also use it for Bonsai.

I have started and grown plants to 3gal size in this mix....

After that, weight when wet becomes an issue, then I move to another weightless mix.

For me it is a better fit than sand for the diverse plants I grow.

However, the largest plants I have seen have been grown in coastal Florida sand.


New plants from California. by
Hostafarian,
on Flickr

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cincinnana

Alternates which work for the grit ingredient are.


Napa oil dry part #8822
At Napa auto stores

Stall dry
I have not used Stall dry but a few forum members say it is a good product.

Cherrystone grit
Cherrystone quartz chicken grit is usually carried by many farm type stores like Tractor Supply,Southern States.

My last bag was a 40# Cherrystone quartz chicken grit.


Any chicken grit will cockadoodle do.

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obdiah

how about sand blasting sand in a coarse grade its silica aka qartz

Yug

Yah, that's the same problem with orchids in bark; we need to give it a fertilizer with extra nitrogen. I would never even consider bark with 'nanners. Have you ever tried a banana in semi-hydro?