Soil mix from Bonsai with Japanese Maples

yenling

I am attempting to make the soil recommended in Bonsai with Japanese Maples by Peter Adams. I am going to make an order off of Dallas bonsai soon(purchasing Bonsai Techniques 1). I could order much of these ingredients from DB, but I would think I can find some of it cheaper. Can you help me? Recommendations on any of this would be very helpful.


Soil Mix includes
*Trade brand soil-less compost(peat will work): Doesn't seem to expensive at DB
*Leaf mold + peat, or fir bark: Can I get fir bark at any nursery?
*Fine Pumice: How big should this be ideally? the size of match pins?
*Fine grade aquarium gravel: I will prob get from Pet's mart or another local fish store.
*Coarse textured gravel or decomposed granite: Where's the best place, how fine should it be?
*Grit+sand: Where's the best place, how fine should it be?

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rockm

I find that recipe to be a bit outdated. There are more ingredient alternatives now that perform much better.

Do not use peat. People avoid peat nowadays. It can be a pain, as it stays too wet and once it dries out, can be impossible to re-wet. It also makes soil pretty mushy.

Skip the leaf mold too. SKip the aquarium gravel, shoot for something more angular

Composted pine bark works better. Fir bark works too. There are some other organic ingredients that work better than peat too.

The granite and pumice are redundant. Pumice alone is good, as is crushed granite. Using them together is unecessary.

It's not necessary to order and pay for freight for soil ingredients...
All of the ingredients are available locally and your local bonsai club probably already has good sources for pumice, bark and other stuff.

007

For my maples I use a mixture of 25% Turface, 25% Crushed Lava, and 50% composted pine bark. All of these ingredients should be readily available locally . . . if not, they can also be found online.

I've been using this mixture for three years now and have had wonderful results from all my tree's. The mix holds water well, but drains very quickly. I can't comment on the long term sustainability of this mix, but I'm sure its going to hold up just fine. This is not a unique recipe by the way . . . lots use it.

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JohnQuinn

My standard mix consists of 1/3 each of Turface (or Shultz Clay Soil Conditioner), composted pine bark mulch (e.g. Nature's Helper) and 'filter sand' obtained from a local irrigation/well drillers supply house. The latter comes pre-sized according to particle size (e.g. #2,#3). I actually get that at Hughes Supply, a Fortune 500 Co. with locations nationwide, including CA.

Unless you have many trees, it may be easier to simply purchase pre-mixed bonsai soil.

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Graydon

Ewwww. Great book but not so good soil mix I think. Reminds me of a book published in early 70's on bonsai with same type soil mixes and ingredients.

Fred at Dallas Bonsai is now stocking a great mix he gets from Japan, it's on the akadama page and is called "bonsai soil mix from Japan". I got some to check it out as I am interested in the various sands he has and I saw it has three of them. Cool sand by the way. Anyhow it's a bit expensive but it appears to be almost free of fines and it's sifted and graded very well. Right out of the bag it's uniform in size so no sifting or screening is needed. If you choose to try it call or email first because they were down to only the smallest grade when I got some. He hopes to stock it in three sizes in the future.

I have a trident growing out in a mix very similar to the one that DB sells. It's doing great despite the lack of organics. My thought was I wanted to pot it up and let it grow for a few years without worrying about soil collapse and without organics to break down faster than the other stuff I think it will be fine. Aeration is great too.

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yenling

Wow, thanks for the great replys! Thought I was going to make an exceptional mix, but the replys saved me.

Okay, now I'm thinking my mix will contain something like
*Turface MVP-35%
*Filter Sand(possibly pumice or lave rock)-35%
*Pine Bark-30%

Sound okay?

Dav4

That mix sounds fine.


Dave

007

Sounds like a winner to me . . . only way to know for sure though is to try it out.

The way that I mix my soil is that I have a large container with all the inorganics sifted and mixed at a 50/50 ratio.

I've got a separate container with the aged pine bark and I basically mix up a new batch for each tree. I vary the amount of organics in each mix based on the tree . . . . for example, my tropicals get more organics than mine conifers, my maples get about an even mix, etc. If I know a tree likes it on the wetter side it gets more organics, if it prefers drier soil it gets less.

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PatArizona

G'day Yenling...

"...Turface MVP-35%...pumice or lava rock-35%...Pine Bark-30%..." sounds much better...

Closer to the KISS Principle...

Pat

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