My guess is that the styrofoam was a cheap substitute for perlite that doesn't work as well as perlite for aerating a growing mix. It would appear that the "benefit" went to added profit for the supplier of your flat of pansies, and not to the pansies or you.

ZM

The only positive would be a lighter weight but it definitely can't aerate the soil or retain any moisture since the cells of styrofoam are sealed. That's why it floats so well.

i bet.. if you were moving these by the pallet .... or semi truck load

dry media filled flats with seed .. or emerged plants

that by the ton of containers ..

there would be a significant weight difference ...

just making up numbers.. but a semi truck full of plants weighing 1000 pounds less.. on the long haul ...

pure unadulterated speculation

ken

purple, perlite can't be compared with the Styrofoam. Perlite has some very important functions in a potting medium; it holds a lot of water in its macro and micro pores that remain available for plant uptake for a fairly long period of time. If soluble fertilizer is used when watering, that remains available, too. Perlite particles also provide lots of great air pockets...a real plus for a developing root system.

You should think of perlite as a contributing amendment.

excellent description of perlite rhizo. I often add more perlite to my potting soil if it looks skimpy. I feel it also lightens up the soil. Not too sure about styrofoam tho!

Styrofoam bits are to potting soil what corn starch is to a frozen dinner. It's cheap and it takes up space and that's about all it contributes to a potting mix. I've bought tons and tons of professonal mixes over the years and never used it. I would also hate to have it distributed to my planting sites in the soil. Might as well take a lawnmower and run over some McDonalds drink cups.......

Perlite is a natural product and provides benefits, styrofoam beads are litter. No, it has nothing to do with a miniscule difference in weight in trucks bearing floral products. It has more to do with a soil manufacturer's profit margins.

Excellent summery of that darned stuff, calliope!

Thanks for the responses. Love the corn starch analogy. I've quit buying any products that substitute corn starch or syrup for real ingredients. But that's another discussion...

Watch out for this stuff, especially if you buy a lot of annuals, which I don't. I got these plants at a large store whose name starts with L that most people have near them. Please don't berate me for not shopping at my local mom & pop garden center. I did exclusively that for years when I lived where there were some. The one here is closed. I was at L's to buy a water heater, and grabbed this flat of pansies as in impulse. They were on clearance for $5.99.

I wasn't comparing styro to perlite as an amendment, just wondering why the substitution had been made. Although I'm not a fan of perlite, I understand its' popularity in hydroponics and container culture. All of my container dirt gets put in my compost pile eventually, and I don't like looking at the white bits on the ground.

Oh brother! I sent L's an email about this and am pasting their response below:

Thank you for contacting me regarding the plants that you purchased. I apologize that you are upset because you found bits or pearls of Styrofoam in your potting mixture.

We are aware that Styrofoam pellets along with perlite and vermiculite are some of the items that are often added to the soil mixture for aeration and water retention. This is a common element in most potting soil and especially potted plants or flats of plants. I will document your concern for review by appropriate management.

If there is anything else that I can do to further assist you, please let me know.

what kind of response did you expect from a hardware store????

lowes is a hardware chain .. not a nursery ...

i am impressed they bothered to reply ...

ken

ps: we will know we have succeeded in enabling you.. when you move on from bigboxstore.. and start mail ordering .. and i will bet my shiny penny.. that you will not get Styrofoam from such ... lol

Ken, in all reality....no one is going to order a FLAT of pansies or anything else like that by mail order. I'll often go by one of those places and see what they have in the way of bedding plants. I'm picky about what I buy, though, but many times I've left with a cart full of stuff.

When I'm interested in something out of the norm, I'll visit the locally owned garden centers or consider mail order.

But I do have to ask Purple why she was buying pansies at this time of year, in her location. ;-) Instead of in October or November, I mean.

"But I do have to ask Purple why she was buying pansies at this time of year, in her location. ;-) Instead of in October or November..."

Well, they were on clearance for $5.99. That's not a bad price for a whole flat.

That's just not my style - mail order. I don't want any plants I can't see in person first. Anyone who can go to L's to buy a water heater and not look @ the plants has much more resolve than I do, especially since there is nowhere else to buy plants around here besides WM. That was it for my plant purchases this year - about $15 of clearance plants.

The pansies I bought last Feb. did great until late summer, and I got much more bang for my buck out of them than a lot of other stuff, like Dahlia tubers. The violas I bought in Oct. are blooming like crazy.

Chiding me for shopping there or critiquing what I bought or when I bought it won't change the fact that somebody high-up in corp office in the gardening department is spreading these falsehoods as fact. Just wanted to alert the people who shop there (wearing scarves and dark glasses to hide their identity) to the situation. If you don't care, that's fine, move on. If enough people complain, they might stop doing it. Now that you know, you might be able to help someone who's wondering why their plants are struggling, or why their dirt is full of styrofoam.

That's a GREAT bloom period for pansies in the deep south! I wasn't chiding you, by the way. It's just that most people (in the south) are yanking them up by late spring in order to replace them with the summer stuff. Given the right conditions, they should be able to go a lot longer and you've proved that. You're brave to even try dahlias down there!

Oh, sorry, & thanks! I don't have the heart (and have plenty of space yet) to yank anything up, unless it's in 1 of my pots on the front porch, like the violas. They may have to go or be moved, will see what happens... The pansies start out in fairly sunny spots in the ground, then get shaded by bigger plants and the trees as they leaf out.

Violas are still blooming.
Dahlias all came back, 1 in pot, 2 in ground.

Now one of my pots has 3 diff Coleus, a Caladium, a Dahlia, violas, snapdragons, pansies, sweet potato vine, and an Alternanthera.

The styro-pansies are not doing well, always wilty.

{{gwi:4188}}

Don't know why the Caladium is burning. It was fine last year.

I sprinkled a bit of granulated fertilizer in the pot last month, but you're probably right, thanks. This planting is over a year old now. This fall I think I will put the whole thing in the ground somewhere & fill the pot from scratch again.