Why Do I Want To Put My Tree In Kitty Litter?

tree bender

I've been using potting soil for my trees and I recently just found a local place that sells Bonsai soil. It looks like kitty litter to me. Can anyone give me some tips on bonsai soil and things I should know?

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bonsaial1

The stuff you see that looks like litter is probably turface.This is a mined clay and hard fired, then sifted for size and sold in large bags. The stuff is made by a company named Profile. There are some bags that can be bought at Orchard Supply Hardware if you have one nearby. This is good stuff and can be used for soil all by itself, but I prefer to add some sand and humus to it.

BTW, do not mistake kitty litter for a soil componet, IT WILL BREAK DOWN INTO A MUDDY MESS.

Bonsai-al

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dbz12fan

I use pure turface for all of my trees. It works quite well and is low cost. I only have tropicals though so I am not sure if it works well for conifers.

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erubeck

Check out the articles at
http:/www.evergreengardenworks.com.

Scroll down to the article on soils. It is a great treatise on the subject.

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Ed

ripsgreentree

On this I have to agree with Al..

Go and wash the word kitty litter out of your vocabulary unless you are rasing cats!

Good Bonsai soil will consist of approximatly 75% inorganic crunch, (crushed lava, pumice, turface, coarse sand, acadama, atkasuki and the like) 25% sifted pine bark, redwood humis or some other uncomposted organic material.

Any mixture that falls closely to this will prove adaquite.
We are talking about the general mix, each of us will tweek the mix depending on the specie of tree that we are potting.
An example is adding peet to the mix for satuzki azalias or pine needle compost to increase the microzia in your pine mix.

I would never advise anyone to use kitty litter, oil dry or any simular product.

Glenn

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ripsgreentree

It requires an open hand to give and to recieve.

TreeBay

atkasuki? I don't know what that is.

I agree with you on the Decomposed granite (DG) products, like kittly litter, which can get sludgy over time, but why do you suggest against Oil Dry

Not sure which oil dry products you are talking about, but the company Oil-Dri is the Manufacturer of Terra-Green, which they are touting as a bonsai product.

http://www.oildri.com/agri/index.html

Terra-Green is calcinated clay like Terra-green. Turface is processed a few miles down the road from the Terra-Green plant, according to this article:

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/4265/20870

Regards,

Matt

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ripsgreentree

The first is just my bad spelling and right now I can't do better.

The oil dry is from experiance in trying to use the product with very bad results. I tosed it out of the mix about ten years ago along with kitty litter.
No offense intended.
My experiance is that Oil Dry holds way too much water and makes for soggie soil mixes. Just my observation.

Glenn

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ripsgreentree

It requires an open hand to give and to recieve.

TreeBay

Sure, I appreciate that it is important to know why people suggest using or not using different products. I imagine that different materials are sold for the purpose of drying up oil. Some calcinated clay products are sold for infield and golfcourse use to improve drainage in the long term and resolve problems with mud following rain in the short term, so there could be differences.

I have some of that turface stuff, it would be interesting to see how much water it holds. I think I could do an experiment.

Regards,

Matt

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GaryS

I've found Oil Dry and Turface to be good soil amendments, so long as you get the dust off.

They soak up and retain water but dry fast.

I forgot to mention that Kitty litter is too soft and breaks down into muck in a short time.

Two different animals.

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GaryS