yes, too big ... but better than nothing ...

it really depends on how big your pots are ... the smaller the pot .. the harder its going to be ... to use you giant chunks ... and vice versa ... but if you were doing a half barrel.. it would be perfect ...

i dont know how you are going to mix it in there ... i would take a one gal pot of each.. mix it together.. and then have 3 pot fulls of mix .... just a smaller scale project ...

ken

I thought it was too big for little ones but I can cut them - I have done that before. Time consuming but it is the weekend :)

the guy down the road ... puts his thru his chipper shredder ...

and he kinda knows what he is doing ... but i will let him speak for himself.. should he wish to ....

i would throw them in the street and run them over with the lawnmower... before i would do it by hand ...

ken

I only have a few pots to do so it isn't a big deal.

Paula, your proposed mix is way too heavy on compost. It will collapse fairly quickly, have poor drainage and most importantly will not allow enough oxygen exchange. The best proportions for a well-draining mix are by volume 5 parts bark -fine, about dime to quarter size-, 1 part peatmoss and 1 part perlite. For food add a couple of handfulls of time-released fertilizer such as Milorganite.

Pieter

in piets formula ... a good media can be substituted for the : 1 part peatmoss and 1 part perlite

and i would be very leary of too much time release in solid ground freeze areas ...

you want your pots devoid of fert come sept ... so the plants will be winding down for dormancy ... if they do not harden off properly.. they will rot ...

what a handful is.. in what mass of ingredients ... i do not know ... i would prefer a little sprinkled on the top.. where you can observe it ...

ken

Today, I found a retailer that would sell me BM but the only one that they had was BM1. I bought it and read the differences between the BM1 and BM8 and it appears as though a little compost needs to be added to make it similar to BM8. Also, the pine bark (smaller than what I have in the picture).

Sooo this mix with a bit of compost 50% and pine bark 50%?

Thanks for your responses, I appreciate the guidance.

Correction...50% BM1 including a bit of compost and the other 50% the pine bark cut as small as I can do it.

I finally found pine bark mini nuggets but they don't look very 'mini' to me. Here is the mix that I made today - does it look right? It was very 'barky' is that normal?

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I finally found pine bark mini nuggets but they don't look very 'mini' to me. Here is the mix that I made today - does it look right? It was very 'barky' is that normal?

The mix is 3.5 buckets of pine bark, 1 bucket of BM1 potting mix, and about half a bucket of compost. I added a little compost because I wanted to get BM8 and it has compost in it but I all I could get was BM1 and it doesn't have any compost.

When I pot the plants and water them, it seems that all is left is the bark; that is okay for hostas to grow in? Should I add some BM1 on the top?

Confused, Potheads -
please help!
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