milehigh_7
Mister 500,000
In Colorado that could be every single day. It's very common to go into the 60's in the day and drop below freezing at night all winter.
Napa Oil Dry part no. 8822
- Thread starter sorce
- Start date
In Colorado that could be every single day. It's very common to go into the 60's in the day and drop below freezing at night all winter.
sorce
Nonsense Rascal
They say it is the hovering around freezing that is bad for a pot.
I assume it is the same for soil.
Sorce
I assume it is the same for soil.
Sorce
milehigh_7
Mister 500,000
It's bad for pavement, have you ever seen Colorado potholes?
Aiki_Joker
Shohin
I
Interesting milehigh_7, why is coco coir associated with gnats and rot? Too much moisture? Or something to do with the structure itself?
sorce
Nonsense Rascal
Aiki_Joker
Shohin
I thought so scorce. I have had these blighters with coco coir and thought it was normal for the climate or a contamination from nursery material or something. Best to make it as uncomfortable as possible for these baastuuds! I will start looking for an alternative ammendment. Most appreciate milehigh and yourself confirming these suspicions!
Silentrunning
Chumono
Our local NAPA has decided to not carry 8822 and instead carries some generic clay substitute from a company I never heard of. So I decided to look around and found an oil dry at Tractor Supply that said “100% Fuller’s earth”. I bought a bag because it was cheap and I could always use it on the barn floor for clean up. After a little experimenting I found that it had fair water retention and didn’t break down real fast. I potted up 2 Junipers and an Azalea 3 months ago in a mixture of that, pearlite, brick bits and charcoal (not briquettes). So far all 3 plants are thriving. I have only used manure tea for their fertilizer.
sparklemotion
Shohin
Cool -- Did you do a freeze-thaw test on the fuller's earth?
Silentrunning
Chumono
Bonsai Nut
Nuttier than your average Nut
Be careful with the difference between DE and CALCINED DE. DE will feel like clay, and when wet will crumble easily into a whitish paste. Calcined DE has been heat-treated and is far less susceptible to crumbling and breaking down.
Napa 8822 is CALCINED DE - which is why it is preferable to other non-calcined DE products.
Some other DE products are heat-treated, so you just need to make sure you know which is which.
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substratum
Shohin
I'm very confused. "Fullers Earth" in this part of the country, is clay, often called atapulgite. There's a nearby town in south Georgia called "Atapulgus," where they still mine the stuff for pharmaceutical use. Fullers Earth is one of the things that folks have to hire geotechnical engineers to do soil core sample tests for when they get ready to build on raw land, because it is soft and unstable in it's natural form, and a vein of it will cause slippage and shifting to foundations under the sustained weight of a house or building. Building code says if you find it, you've got to either remove it from under the area that will be load-bearing, or do extra fortified foundation/footer work in the construction process to mitigate it. I also thought the "calcined" aspect of it involved heating it (to make the stuff they sell at Tractor Supply). Are we talking about the same stuff?
I thought DE was fossilized diatoms. Are the fossilized diatoms mined as clay? I had in my mind that it was mined almost like shale.
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coh
Imperial Masterpiece
Yeah, I'm pretty sure @Bonsai Nut is just wrong about that. Do a google search and "fuller's earth" comes up as clay, not DE. They are distinct substances.
Bonsai Nut
Nuttier than your average Nut
Silentrunning
Chumono
All of the local NAPA’s carry some junk oil dry and not 8822. I am going on a trip next week and will see if I can find one that carries the good stuff. So far Tractor Supply oil dry seems ok. Winter weather may change my opinion. Most of my trees will need repotting next year since I did a really crappy job this year. All I am striving for now is to keep everything alive this year.
daygan
Chumono
You should be able to order it for most NAPA stores on their website. I believe there are some stores that don't participate in the ordering option, but it should be possible for most of them. I'm looking at the NAPA site right now and it looks like the stores in and around Warrenton do participate in the reserve-online option.
KennedyMarx
Omono
Did you try asking the salesperson? Sometimes the 8822 is in the back.
Joe Dupre'
Omono
My local NAPA doesn't stock it, but they order it and it's in the next morning.........no freight charge.
I've been using it for the last 3 years and have stopped looking for anything better. I just mix sieved soil conditioner ( fine pine bark) in varying percentages and it does all I need it to do. I recently chucked out a few experiments from 1 to 3 years old (not dead....just not working out like I thought) and the DE hadn't really broken down much at all. Most of it shook out of the root balls. I dry it out, re-sieve it and re-use it for home-grown potting soil.
I've been using it for the last 3 years and have stopped looking for anything better. I just mix sieved soil conditioner ( fine pine bark) in varying percentages and it does all I need it to do. I recently chucked out a few experiments from 1 to 3 years old (not dead....just not working out like I thought) and the DE hadn't really broken down much at all. Most of it shook out of the root balls. I dry it out, re-sieve it and re-use it for home-grown potting soil.
TN_Jim
Omono
Feel ya on wanting to repot...is this really best though?
I water and feed all of my trees about the same..been thinking this is bad practice despite them being in relatively the same mix (de heavy)...
Some shouldn’t be fed probably because they are needing some bring-back, most are in different types of colanders from thrift stores etc. with varying degrees of water retention, depths, and sizes...
In lieu of these inconsistencies, pretty much all have seen some positive growth of sorts (killed a buckeye this week officially..probably) yet think many could be in better vessels, substrates, or both.
Still though, most of them were from this winter spring or summer..
and if they all make it through the winter, I wonder if it’s not better to leave each where they be for the most part saving the trauma of a repot, and learn their individual requirements..
This is purely a hypothetical across several species.
TN_Jim
Omono
They stack in the front window around here.
Silentrunning
Chumono
Yes. He took me in back and showed me what they had. It was basically clay kitty litter. This NAPA store must be independently owned so they can carry whatever they want. Theirs wasn’t even a NAPA product.
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