Central Midwest Gardening: March 2013 Marching into Spring while flying a kite!, 5 by shortleaf

shortleaf wrote:
Here is your poorman's tutorial on how to save money on potting soil by making your own! The recipe is 2 parts topsoil to 1 part Miracle-Gro potting mix.
Hehe.. actually, it's (1) big bag (this is where your expense comes in, it was $13.97) of Miracle-Gro potting mix, (I think 40 lbs., it doesn't say on the bag, oddly enuff) and (2) 40 lb. bags of cheapo topsoil, (they were $1.25 ea.). You open the bags then you pour about a third of the bag at a time of each. Each time after you pour a different soil on top of another you mix them up with a shovel. When your all done you have about 100 lbs. of potting mix! Well, it looks like it anyway, and nobody is the wiser! I won a bid on this Japanese Maple 'Ornatum', it's a genuine grafted plant, I got it cheap on Ebay. - http://www.ebay.com/itm/Japanese-Maple-ORNATUM-HIGH-GRAFTED-...
Here is the whole line-up. - http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p3984.m570.l1313&_nkw... Anyway, I wanted to get it potted up in quality soil and watered as soon as it got here, so I went out and got my poorman's potting soil! There's no way I want to lose this Maple. It might be my only savior when I inform my friend here that her fancy, big, pretty Japanese Maple cultivar is deceased! She'll know quick that her's died because I didn't water it enuff last Summer, that's when I cover my face cheeks and present the new one, though it will be quite a bit smaller. It's way smaller than that one in that photo I linked to, that's their mature plant, it's 15 years old, mine is 1 maybe 2 years old. I'm guessing it's closer to 2 though because it's taller than I thought, it's about 2 to 3 feet tall now, it has buds on it so they better open up and turn into leaves! It is grafted 22 inches high, the rootstock down below is likely straight Japanese Maple (Acer Palmatum). It's grafted so high so it doesn't look like a ground cover later. I'll need to be somewhat diligent in keeping the below 22" portion of the trunk trimmed because I paid for the grafted part 'Ornatum', not the rootstock's branches and leaves! lol
The first photo is after I just got back with the ingredients. - In the second photo I'm about halfway done with my concoction. - The third photo is just a shot of the stuff in the can. - The last 2 photos are potting up the Japanese Maple. I think the fourth photo shows the can full, then the fifth photo it's not so full! lol
Will



This message was edited Mar 22, 2013 11:36 AM