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| I wasn't paying attention and mixed together turface and perlite for the 5-1-1 mix. Stopped there. I have the reptibark and sphagnum moss but I didn't want to compound my mistake.
I don't care if I make a gritty or more organic mix, I'd just like to be able to use what I put together. Also the sphagnum I bought is 'real sphagnum' and some pieces are 2 inches long. Can I just roughly tear these apart, or leave as is for the mix? I appreciate any advice.
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Follow-Up Postings:
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| You definitely want the peat dispersed as evenly as possible for even moisture and drainage. As for the turface/perlite, I think you can just use the same 1 part of your mixture without any problems, since perlite and turface are interchangeable in the 5-1-1 mix. Hopefully someone more experienced can confirm this. |
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- Posted by greenman28 NorCal 7b/8a (My Page) on Sun, May 29, 11 at 14:36
| With the turface and perlite, you might be able to eliminate the peat in this batch. Turface holds much more moisture than perlite. Turface holds moisture internally, whereas Josh |
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- Posted by greenman28 NorCal 7b/8a (My Page) on Sun, May 29, 11 at 16:40
| Also wanted to add that Phil is correct. Chop that sphagnum into fine particulate. Josh |
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| This "as is from the bogs of Canada" sphagnum was expensive! Never mind. What is the correct sphagnum to buy (if this ever runs out) Still not sure whether there is consensus on rehabilitating the mix. |
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| You can use the perlite and turface in 5-1-1 if you cut back on the sphagnum peat a little. Your mix will be more water retentive, but you'll just need to be a little more careful about watering. But I don't think you should use the sphagnum moss at all. Sphagnum peat has completely different properties. It is usually dark brown and comes in big compressed bales. It's almost powdery. Long fiber sphagnum moss is sometimes used in orchid mixes, but I don't think it is suitable in regular potting mixes. |
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| Thanks.....that info on the long fiber sphagnum moss is disappointing. Marie |
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| I wanted to bump this up and see if anyone else has comments. Thanks, Marie |
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| Marie, It's already been a few weeks but since you were looking for more input and didn't receive a reply... I did the same thing once on accident. I did as Josh stated above: I reduced the amount of peat proportionally (basically I substituted turface for peat) in that "scoop". However, I did do a complete 5-1-1 of bark, turface, perlite. In the end, I added more peat and perlite, so it was more like 5-(1/2&1/2)-(1/2&1/2). Make sense? It worked fine. |
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