Stone Lantern Pro-mix Bonsai soil – 5lt

Description

Stone Lantern Pro-mix – is a fast draining growing medium for bonsai trees.  Good drainage promotes good aeration of the growing medium, helping with the development of strong healthy roots and help prevent soil fungal diseases like root rot and other diseases and pests, like fungus gnats, that comes with bad drainage and poor aeration.

Pros

Fast draining growing medium. – Though leca retains a lot of moisture excess water will drain out of the pot.  It help with the exchange of oxygen in the growing medium

Because of leca’s structure the growing medium is very light- making it easier to move bonsai – especially the bigger trees.

It does not have a lot of nutrients in it and you need to have a regular feeding program.  It gives you control over the growth on your tree trough feeding of your tree or not.

Leca does not break down and it can be recover after repotting.  Just place the old soil that you replaced in water.

Leca does not influence the Ph in your soil.

Cons

Fast draining growing medium. – You have to keep track of moisture in your growing medium, especially in hot days.  To improve the soil retention in this mixture add more organic matter or peat.

Because of leca’s structure the growing medium is very light- which means you cannot dunk a tree planted in a leca medium.  All the leca will float to the top.

It does not have a lot of nutrients in it and you need to have a regular feeding program.  Make use of slow release fertilizers like 1-for-All, BonsaiBoost, or Bio Ocean to help with your fertilizer program.

Because it’s a fast draining growing medium, its necessary to keep track of the moisture in the growing medium.  If you need to increase the water retention of the pro-mix you can add our general bonsai soil mix, composted pine bark or peat to it.   Do not add fine sand or mushroom compost to the Pro-mix.  It will fill in the open air pockets created by the leca in the mixture, preventing good drainage and aeration.  Compost sold as mushroom compost is generally made of hay or grass and it breaks down within a short period into a soft medium same as clay, retaining a lot of moisture, preventing any oxygen exchange and promoting fungal diseases like root rot.

Pro-mix is made up of:

70% 2-4mm crushed and round Leca

10 % stone

10 % composted pine bark

10% woodchip compost.

Leca stand for ‘light expanded clay aggregate’

Leca will help to improve the drainage of your soil mixture.

Because of the structure of Leca (it will float on water) it also help to make your tree lighter.

A Good soil mixture for Wild olives is a mixture of crushed leca (60%) with composted bark (20%) and stone (20%).  This mixture will have sufficient drainage and will allow good air circulation in your soil mix too help prevent root rot in olives and help to promote good strong roots.

To improve the soil retention in this mixture add more organic matter or peat.

Leca is used in many different applications, like in bonsai soil mix, hydroponics, etc.

Leca does not contain any nutrients and will also not influence your pH in your soil.

Do not dunk this mixture at any stage.  Submerging any growing medium containing leca will cause the leca to float to the top.

Pro-mix does not have much nutritional value for plants and its necessary to maintain a regular feeding program to help to sustain the health of your bonsai