Sharp sand for potting mix

Hi - Does anyone know of a source for CLEAN sharp sand? I'm making my own potting soil and wish to use sharp sand, not perlite, to provide aeration. I've tried builder's sand from my hardware store to disastrous effect. I need something clean. Kevin

Did you try cleaning it yourself? Pour some sand in a bucket, add water, stir to rinse and float crud, pour off scum, rinse, repeat....spread wet sand to dry or use wet.

You have me curious, what was this horrid effect?
#1. Kill all plants
#2. Grew a building instead of plants
#3. Sharp sand soooo sharp it cut your garden gloves to ribbons...
#4. ???

But seriously, I have clay soil and just dump sand in the hole when I transplant....this may explain why some of my plants just don't thrive and others just outright die. If I could blame some of these failures on the builder's sand....

Dear Pull Tab: I think the "sharp sand" I bought was probably masonry sand. It was extremely heavy. Instead of aerating the soil, it seemed to compact it. I'm creating soil for houseplants (as organically as possible; leaf mold instead of peat moss, sand instead of perlite or vermiculite). Is there no such thing as "horticultural" sand? I've already had the fun of sifting and baking the leaf mold. Would like to avoid additional work...like washing sand!
K.

Our local extension office says not to add sand to clay soil, 'cause all you're gonna get is "cement" - I use raised beds over the clay to which I add perlite, vermiculite, peat moss, coco fiber, composted cow manure, mushroom compost, greensand, bone meal, blood meal, mycorrhizae, finely shredded leaves and anything else I can lay my hands on :)

I always used sandbox sand when I wanted to fluff up my soil or improve drainage, but then I have enviable river bottom loam two feet deep in most places. I use peat moss and play sand to start seeds in. The only time I ever worked with clay was at a lakeside little lot I had as a vacation spot about 60 mi. south of here. I built shallow stone flower beds either side of my deck steps, raked up the clay as much as I could (got severe fibro and could barely do the little stone retainer wall so don't picture much scraping) and mixed that clay with a bag of topsoil, leafmould (it's under hardwood forest and it was mostly oak and tulip poplar leaves) plus a bag of play sand and bag of peatmoss well scratched and mixed together. The stuff I planted in it (bleeding heart, hosta, ajuga, irises, daylilies) all grew well and 8 years later those spots had loam where the normal ground under the hardwoods is leaf litter and duff. So it seemed to work okay for me. YMMV.--Melis

wintergardener: Is there a reason why you don't use commercial potting mix? And I've never seen a horticultural sand nor seen sand as an ingredient in commercial mix. And what's wrong with vermiculite and perlite?

I have clay soil but have never added sand to my soil either. I have read many cautions against that. Essentially all say that it's not good unless you use truckloads of it and replace a lot of the native soil with it.

Here's one
http://www.extension.umn.edu/yardandgarden/AAMG/bulbs/HardyBulbsforClay.html

Karen

I have worked in clay soils all my life, and any amount of sand is better than no sand at all. I've heard the "concrete" statement over and over, but I've seen the results. It also is just plain common sense. Anything with a particle size larger than the clay particles is going to improve aeration. That said, masonry sand and other extremely fine sands are a poor choice, because the particle size is so close to the particle size of the clay. I think it would be better than nothing, but coarse sand would be better. I use coarse creek sand. It is the waste product of the gravel plants around here when they wash and grade gravel.

I like wintergarden's proposed mix as something effective, sustainable, and responsible.

I think some of the posters are missing that Kevin is talking about a 'container' soil. I'm not sure how the conversation tracked toward amending clay soils with sand, as clay is generally considered wholly inappropriate in container media. The SAND that is used to good effect in container soils is very coarse - 1/2 BB size to BB size. Finer sand still allows for acceptable drainage, but it destroys aeration by filling macro-pores and increases the height of the saturated layer of soil at the container bottom. Neither are good.

You can get very coarse silica sand at a (real - not big box) masonry store, at a pool supply place (pool filter sand) that is 1/16" or larger. You can also buy crushed granite (Gran-I-Grit) in 'starter or grower' size from rural elevators that cater to feeds. It is used as grit for chickens and turkeys.

I think this is off topic, but I wanted to comment on it as it's still germane to the conversation. Anything with a particle size larger than the clay particles is going to improve aeration.

I disagree with this line of thinking. I'll give an example to illustrate why I can't agree: Think of your clay soil as a tub of pudding. They are very similar. How much sand do you have to add to a tub of pudding to make it drain well and make it well aerated. You cannot do it. It would take >90% sand mixed with pudding before it even resembled something that would drain and hold any air. Once you have more than 50% sand, you no longer have sand mixed with pudding, you have pudding mixed with sand.

Even if you have 75% sand mixed with clay, the fine clay particles will completely surround the larger sand particles and the combination will be very close to the same drainage/aeration characteristics of the clay.

Al

I have clay loam soil and have added about 1/3 sand and 1/3 local dark peatmoss added to the topsoil plus organic matter to produce dirt that looks like dirt "to die for" as they say.

Looks are often deceiving. Clay can be (and usually is) VERY problematic in containers. If you equate black with good, you can add shoe polish and make your soil LOOK good. ;o) You want a soil that drains freely and has 25%+ air retention at container capacity.

Al

Al, I was back to garden soil rather than container soil. Still it works great for me in both.

I'm glad it works to your satisfaction, but I would caution others that the likliehood it would work well for them is very low. Sorry.

Al