I’m watching and yes I agree I haven’t bought soil in many years but if you’re getting root rot you need to know more about your plants. I make my own but the amount of organic depends on the tree or the bush. I have 6 different mixes I use.
Woollies cat litter works so well been doing it for a couple of years now. Don't have a cement mixer but I use a compost tumbler so it keeps it dry for when I need it. Cheers Sam
I decided to test the cat litter,I sifted some because I have small bonsai, sifted I get 60% 2mm and 40% 4+ mm could get other sizes ,i had only one size sifter , I can use for my lager bonsai ,getting the best of both worlds LOL better get my shopping in i get it delivered with my food order!
I am really excited about the fact I can see myself making a nice mix of well draining premium bonsai mix and having a better success rate than I previously had in Geraldton western Australia
@@mariakellner5429 OK, fair enough. I am from Germany. So i am sure there will be differences. I just compared the dusty cat litter in the video with the zeolite I have. It's sold as a filter component for Koi ponds here, so it's pretty clean and the particle size is pretty consistent. You can choose from many particle sizes. like 2-4 mm or 4-8mm
we have that same product in NZ, and will I'm an advocate for it, I really recommend sifting it with a kitchen sieve in water. ive had it clump up on me when straight from the bag, and made a solid layer that wouldn't let water through.
excellent for australian climates, we are a different climate all together. Also could you throw in the seasonal references when your doing maintenance rather than (some other channels) the months of the year, that way it is a world reference rather than a northern or southern substitute.
I have an old dryer I can modify to mix soil maybe...🤔 Thanks for all the tips! I'm going to look and see if we have anything similar! Cat litter here is usually just clay. Turns to much when you add water.
You're lucky with that cat litter. Not every cat litter is zeolite, there are diatomae, bentonite, sepiolite... and the last one is not very good for bonsai because it degrades and compacts easily. Zeolite is the best one. I also have been using potting soil for decades. I used to mix it with standard construction sand, now I'm using construction leca about your percentage (much cheaper than plants leca, being basically the same). I only need to water once a day if hot.
Hi, love your videos. I’ve only been in the Bonsai train for a few months. I’m trying to grow all my own so I have a lot of pre Bonsai in growing pots and foam boxes. Would this soil mix be good for pre Bonsai. Keep up the great work.
It might help with a bit of drainage/aeration and water retention depending on what you're using and if its really poor at the above.... but generally you don't want to use inorganics like that for trees in the development stage. They're generally only for advanced trees in the ramification stage and mostly organics for development stage. I could get deep into the reasons for this but I doubt you want to read it haha and nor I type it. )) But simply put organics in larger pots or ground will give you long elongated roots and this is reflected in the top of the tree. Elongation is key. That's what you need to thicken up your trunks and develop the primary branch structure and surface root display/nefarious. Long internodes etx and let the shoots grow out Long as you can to thicken them up then cut right back to a few nodes (depending on species. Not cobifers) then let a new shoot develop and elongate and repeat repeat repeat to get all your thickness and cool movement and taper in trunks, branches, and negative.. When that's developed how you want the tree structure to look like (as it won't grow much bigger or thicker after this) then and only then you can start moving it into inorganics and shallow pots. Once you start mixing inorganics inches growth is going to alow right down so note that. Not a good way to develop trees. Once in inorganics besides slowing down this is where they'll start developing that fine feeder roots and a fine flat pad of fine tight feeder roots for a bonsai pot. The course substrate causing root division heavily. And just like above this will be reflected in the top of the tree...the foliage and branch structure especially. So this is how you'll get the real tight compact tree in scale with tight internodes? Fine branch structure, compact and small tight foliage masses and such to get the mini-big-tree look. :) And that's the "basically" short quickly typed ramble version haha. I'm not typing the long one😂
Such an obvious thing once it is pointed out (to use a cement mixer), and I do "happen to have one lying about". I wonder if it still runs? Hubby heard the mixer from across the room and wondered if you were experimenting with that poor olive again!
Was wondering if I was gonna see those orange bags when I clicked haha I was taught to do a 1:1:1 mix of potting mix, zeolite and perlite. Would you say that's probably somewhere in between your two mixes as far as watering and fertilising goes?
Yeh I mean yeh could use perlite but i wanted to keep it simple so every time I'd be happy to mix more. As far as how much you want to water that just depends on the ratio of zeolite to potting mix you choose
I guess the premium potting mix is cheaper and also the cat littler. I feel the 65 / 35 zeolite should be good and if still to wet just chuck in a little more cat little
