There's many more things in life that are more important than vermiculite, fake Easter grass, or packaging peanuts. These may irritate me a little but not so much as to make me complain to the world about them.
I hate high medical bills, costly prescriptions, unfair taxes, greedy stock brokers, bailing out AIG, Citi Bank and the rest of Wall Street, war, genocide, hunger, lying politicians, etc.

I once worked at a green house and they only used vermeculite for covering newly sown seeds that hardly needed any cover at all. For every thing else they usually used sand or perlite; soil-improvement, covering top soil...

Vermeculite is a type of poreous vulcanic stone and doesn't brake down in the same way as composted bark, peat moss and other organic stuff does.

Prairielaura -- I couldn't agree with you more about fake easter grass and those *%$#!%^ styrofoam peanuts that somehow get an electric charge and cling tenaciously/voraciously/maddenly to everything in sight. However, I kind of like vermiculite . . . Yeah, it floats, but then so does perlite and dry peat. You just need to mix it well with media that absorb water, & then moisten everything slowly. I frequently use 100% vermiculite as a rooting medium for certain plants. And you're right -- it doesn't break down, but that's one of the beauties of the stuff. It's a naturally occuring mineral -- very similar to mica.

As for refusing to admit to having pet peeves simply because they don't quite approach the gravity of world hunger, genocide (or abject torture sanctioned by an American administration) . . . well -- I guess I'd best not go there.

Ok.. I hate Comcast, AT&T, Sony, Hewlett-Packard,AOL, SBC, insurance companies and all banks. Seems I hate things I do not understand.

Vermiculite is one of many micas that form in non-extrusive igneous rocks and is also in metamorphic rocks. Both are formed under pressure with heat. (Volcanic rocks cool rapidly, so the crystals in them are microscopic.)
The neat thing about vermiculite (when it's removed from the host rock)is that when it's heated, it expands and you get the very light product (that floats).

hmm, so it's a bit like puffed rice in a way, just that it's puffed stone?

I am with you, prairielaura. I don't like the stuff either. I believe there are some rather significant health and environmental hazards associated with vermiculite mining.

Puffed rice is a good analogy. I remember doing that the first time in Minerology class. (A match can do this to a huge blade of vermiculite, puffed rice takes a lot more energy.)

Mining problems of all kinds of rocks are too big a topic and need to have a sieve placed on the arguments. Sometimes, you might find that arguments have been generated to keep mines out of residential areas because the mines aren't wanted.
Heck, there are health concerns with living in large parts of this country because of residual radioactivity in certain minerals in the complex (and occassionally simple) rocks there.

Concerning the health risks of using vermiculite in the garden, see:

http://www.health.state.mn.us/divs/eh/hazardous/sites/hennepin/western/garden.html

Here is a link that might be useful: link for above

It's what Chamblee's used to use for rooting, pure vermiculite.
Jaxondel, you seem to have a gripe about everything. Maybe you should take it to HT before you get MORE innocent people in trouble here.

Carla

What the heck? Are people no longer allowed to gripe on this forum? I think the OP was asking a legitimate question and she was then smacked by Karl. And can someone explain to me the last comment? Maybe I'm lost here, but why the nastiness?

prairielaura, I apologize for using your post to send a message to Jax but I'm sure he/she knows what I'm talking about. It is strongly believed that he/she has caused problems for some good posters on these forums. Enough said.

Carla

Oh heavens, I was just posting for fun. Everyone here knows more than I do about roses, so I'll just shrug off any irritation that people may be feeling on any given day, and keep coming around for rosey opinions...

Oh...and I was SO kidding,also.
I hate HATE!!!!

Thank you for the link, HKuska. I prefer to use coir for water retention in soil mixes, but it seems to no longer be available where I live.