New Zealand is where Orchiata bark comes from. They have a seedling grade (called ''Precision'') which is 3-6 mm. You can use that... Only problem with any sort of tree bark is that it becomes hydrophobic after repeated wet-dry cycles. A wetting agent takes care of the problem, and I've read that y...

I see that yours is between 1mm-5mm but are there any drawbacks to using slightly larger sizes (e.g. 5mm - 10mm grains)? 5 mm-10 mm is quite a bit larger -- too open for a soilless mix. I grow 4 of my cacti in a 50% pumice/50% soil mix, so I'd recommend pumice with 3 mm-5 mm grains. It also depends...

That is not my experience. Nitrate is inferior to ammonium in some situations and can cause yellowing rather than greening. For example plants which need acidic soil conditions may do not do well with nitrate. This includes many cacti of course. For example, Gymnocalycium, Notocactus, Echinopsis, R...

any good gardener will tell you Nitrate fertiliser produces the fastest greening effect. That is not my experience. Nitrate is inferior to ammonium in some situations and can cause yellowing rather than greening. For example plants which need acidic soil conditions may do not do well with nitrate. ...

Yeah, I have to send in that water sample to properly understand the baseline I'm working with. Definitely agree it's close to being an all-in-one! The only soluble fertilizer combo I know of that includes Ca, Mg and S is this combo from Masterblend whose ratio is 1:0.4:1.62. Unfortunately, it's ma...

Okay, I did the math for the Masterblend 15-10-30 -- dilution is 1.8 grams per gallon of water. Now here's the nutrient breakdown: 11.03% Nitrate N -- 0.20 g/53 ppm 3.97% Ammonium N -- 0.07 g/18 ppm Total N = 15% -- 0.27 g/71 ppm 4.36% elemental P -- 0.08 g/21 ppm 24.9% elemental K -- 0.45 g/119 ppm...

The Masterblend Pot Mum Formula appears to be the most promising, although I'll have to dig into it more before I come to any conclusions. The only problem we have with dry water-soluble fertilizers is that they need to be diluted by weight, not volume. For example, a teaspoon of fertilizer won't ha...

One must do trial and error experimentation on our own to see what works with one's particulars. Frustrating and very trying but that's the way it goes. Take measurements and make notes. Don't mean to toot my own horn, but my powers of observation are keen, and I used to put some of them to work wh...

I do have a question about lighting after cutting. Should the base and top be in full light or do they need more muted lighting to recover while callusing over? Also would a glass container for the top that allows more light be better or an opaque container be best? Hi Deejay, If you're talking abo...

I did stumble on this literature discussing citric acid, calcium and phosphate. I'll see your study and raise you this study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969723023136 Both studies have absolutely no relevance to growing cacti in pots. All I can tell you is that a year...

I may be chasing down a rabbit hole here, so let's try this another way... When hoopgod32 said that calcium acetate is an effective phosphate binder, I'll take his word for it. Question -- is white vinegar a good choice for acidifying hard water? When calcium acetate from the acidified water reacts ...

Even if the K3PO4 remains unchanged in the above equation, it needs to be indicated on the right hand side of the equation. As it is not, I'd say the equation is incomplete and unbalanced. Something's not right about it. The red flag saying "some elements only exist on one side of the reaction...

Before we make assumptions about calcium acetate as a phosphate binder, we'll go through some of the ingredients in the General Hydroponics FloraBloom 0-5-4 I use. They are: Magnesium phosphate -- Mg3(PO4)2 Phosphoric acid -- H3PO4 Potassium phosphate -- K3PO4 The chemical formula for acetic acid is...

You should ignore it. In horticulture, there only seems to be a small problem with some clays (but not all) making some of the P unavailable. The answer in that case is to simply increase the P. In soilless mixes there are no problems that I know of with P becoming unavailable. In fact it is highly...

Hello, I’ve had this cactus for about 8 years. I don’t know what kind it is. But for the 8 years I’ve had it, it has been in the same south facing window with the same care routine. I water a little once a week in spring/summer and once every two weeks in the winter. Recently it has started to disc...