FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Having seen BradR's photos at http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/north ... t8409.html, it's now completely obvious to me what kind of soil we're dealing with in the VFTs' natural habitat. I kept hearing words like "bog" and "wetlands" and thinking of the black soil I've seen in some parts of Eastern NC, but it's not like that at all. It actually appears to be about 90% or more silica, with just enough leaf mold and humus to make it acidic, but not enough to make it fertile. Somehow, that was never quite clear to me before, although now I remember having read things to that effect.

So my question is, why the heck are we all using and recommending peat-based soils, when peat is apparently being over-harvested? What's the thinking here? Is it about pot weight, or is there some other reason that we're not using more silica?

Peat is generally,easier to get,and many cp shops sell a ready made mix which is,easier to get,some people do use lots of silica,but peat and perlite is easier to find and buy.

I do understand what you're saying, Tim (if I may call you so), and I have wondered it myself. I'm looking for an alternative that doesn't break the bank. I've heard EcoEarth (used for reptiles, inverts and other such creatures & creepy crawlies) is good for carnivorous plants. It's made of coco husk fiber and has no nutrient value whatsoever, but I have yet to test my plants in it... that and it requires 4litres of water to re-hydrate it and right now I can't seem to find any CP-safe water anywhere.

I use EcoEarth for my African land snails, rehydrated with tap water, it is available at most reptile stores if you're interested in trying it, and I do believe its available world wide. I'm going to do more research on it and I believe someone actually posted about it (I'll see if I can find the link).

Edit: I've been scanning the forums and found a fascinating quote from Steve; I hope he doesn't mind me adding it to this post. It’s not from the original thread I mentioned above but it’s still very interesting and certainly helpful.

Steve_D wrote:Coir (coconut husk pith and some fiber) is the byproduct of the extraction of most of the fiber from coconut husks to make rope (traditionally, marine rope because coconut fiber resists rotting in water).

To process the coconut husks, a lot of water is used, and often that water source happens to be free and freely available ocean water, which adds a tremendous amount of dissolved minerals and salts to the coir. Even in coir that has been saturated by pure water in several monsoons (rainy seasons), or rinsed prior to sale, much of the soluble material remains. Although the remaining amount is usually not enough to harm most garden plants when used merely as a soil supplement rather than soil replacement, coir can easily contain (I know this from my own experience) over 1000 ppm TDS (total dissolved solids), which can cause a lot of damage to Venus Flytraps (I know this also from personal experience) or be deadly to them over the course of a few weeks to a few months.

However, the coconut pith/fiber in your EcoEarth product might be lower in TDS, and the advice about flushing the medium and allowing water to drain from it, carrying the dissolved material with it, might work well.

Coir has a tremendous amount of potential as a carnivorous plant growing medium or mix ingredient, especially in seeking a sphagnum-free mix, so in my opinion its advantages outweight the bit of extra effort we may have to take to ensure that it is leached of almost all the soluble minerals/salts it may contain when it is bought. I soak coir from 8-12 times for 8-12 hours at a time, then drain and test the water with a TDS meter between each soak until the TDS reading is consistently below 50 parts per million.

The actual discussion thread (although not directly about EcoEarth) can be found here. I’ll see what else I can find out and maybe we can come up with a handy alternative.

heathenpriest wrote:So my question is, why the heck are we all using and recommending peat-based soils, when peat is apparently being over-harvested? What's the thinking here? Is it about pot weight, or is there some other reason that we're not using more silica?

For me, it's about water retention. I like having peat in the mix to hold water so that I don't have to stand the plants in water all the time but I also don't have to worry about them drying out.

Matt wrote:

heathenpriest wrote:So my question is, why the heck are we all using and recommending peat-based soils, when peat is apparently being over-harvested? What's the thinking here? Is it about pot weight, or is there some other reason that we're not using more silica?

For me, it's about water retention. I like having peat in the mix to hold water so that I don't have to stand the plants in water all the time but I also don't have to worry about them drying out.

Yeah, with all the plants Matt's got, it would be a real pain in the heinie to water his plants every few hours . It's a lot of extra work to water it, but it could be worth it, might have to have someone try it and give us some feedback .

Yeah, I guess I can see the water retention issue. Speaking of which, I've noticed that the silica blends I made for my soil experiment (using a fairly fine silica) seem to wick the moisture from the pan to the top of the soil significantly better than the perlite blends do, and as good as or possibly even better than the pure peat, pure coir, etc.

But still, I imagine if we measured the amount of water a cubic foot of silica can hold, and compared it to a peat-based soil, it would almost certainly be less, and would therefore require more frequent watering. (I might try to actually measure that sometime and see.)

Since I have my pots standing in water anyway, a silica-based soil should work just fine for me. I think I'm going to try it in a deep pot next time I transplant, especially if I can find some of that 7 cents a pound silica instead of the dollar a pound stuff I've been getting! I'm also thinking there might be room for another category in my soil experiment, which would be 75% or more silica blends with each of the organic materials I'm planning to test. Hmmm . . .

Tim:
I agree with your comments on silica sand. I have done some experimentation with it. Flytraps grow OK in pure silica if the humidity is very high. My climate is a little too dry, but by adding a small amount of peat to the sand you can fine tune the media for your growing conditions. 80% silica 20% peat works pretty well. I recommend staying away from the really fine stuff. I tried some 90 mesh silica once and it did not drain well at all. When I was in Wilmington I brought back a small bag of the sand the flytraps were growing in. I ran it through some standard sieves and I think most of it was around 16 mesh. Another thing I have read is that some of the graded silica you can buy is made by crushing quartz rock then running it through screens. During the crushing process, water is sprayed on it, which leaves mineral salt residue on the silica. So you should rinse or soak it before use.

Brad

I agree with Matt's and others' water retention arguments.

In nature, in almost pure sand, but with a high water table, constant water supply moving through the sand, continuous wicking from that inexhaustible reservoir, almost pure sand will work for growing Venus Flytraps.

But in an artificial environment, unless we can simulate all of that and don't consider it too much effort, it helps to include some percentage of water retentive material so we don't have to water as often. But the medium would be better the more airy and "sand-like" it is (I'm just speaking about my own opinions and preferences). So I've tried mostly sand with a little sphagnum peat moss, up to mostly sphagnum peat moss with a little sand. The mix that works the best for me in my rather arid environment is about 50% sphagnum peat moss and 50% sand or mix of sand and perlite.

COIR
All that said, I'm now potting many of my plants in a coir mix. After experimenting with various ingredients to mix with the coir, the simplest coir mix I like so far, that has about the same water-retentiveness and drying time as a standard 50/50 peat/sand mix is 12 parts by volume of soaked, desalinated and dried coir to 5 parts silica sand. Desalinating (removing the soluble mineral salts) is important and detailed in other discussions here at the FlytrapCare.com Forum.

Very interesting subject. Recently I've added small orchid bark (evergreen bark) pieces to the coir mix, and would like to try chopped evergreen needles as some forum members are already experimenting with.

I really need to get some silica sand to try out some stuff with it. I'd like to try mixing silica with peat, 70:30 silica:peat or something like that to see how it works . Can anyone tell me where they get cheap silica

dantt99, here's an older post where Matt replied with some silica info and even a picture of the bag: http://www.flytrapcare.com/phpBB3/silic ... t3239.html

Yeah, that's the more expensive sand that I used to use. It's almost pure white and I believe that it's artificially made. Since then I've moved on to using a different type (I'll post another photo of it when I get more) that's natural and costs less.

Is Quikreit Pool Filter sand okay?

Read the datasheet on Quikrete's website about their pool sand. Somewhere in there it should say what it's made of. I personally use Quikrete Commercial Grade sand and it's supposedly 99%+ silica.

Okay, as long as Quikreit is okay, thanks!

That seems to be the main sand that is available at my stores around .