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mudmantoo
Join Date: Jan-2005
Location: South Florida
Country: United States
Posts: 124
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I agree that soil composition has a lot to do with the location the plants are growing in, a major comcern is moisture retention and good drainage....living in humid South Florida my personal preference to achieve this is to use turface mixed with a well sifted compost , I really like a commercial potting component called "jungle growth", it is a mixture of pine bark, peat moss and perlite....the key to using this product is of course to "sift" it well to remove the fines....for junipers I use it in a 70/30 ratio , and with ficus and other tropicals about 50/50....these formulas give my trees a good mass of fine roots, good drainage and moisture retention, adding some coarse sand will help retain a little more moisture for the trees that need it.
World class bonsai master Jim Smith, one of the founders of our local bonsai club, grows his mature trees in 100% turface, of course he has a drip system to water them regularly, otherwise the soil would lose moisture rapidly on windy summer days.
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