Nice. I tip plants right out of their pots and check for root quality, etc. when I'm at a nursery and see something I may want to buy.

OK, Donna. You win this round. lol Well done.

Hey you guys, way to go! A hosta geek always checks out the quality before buying....even if it takes 10 minutes to choose one from the bunch of the same cultivar!

Steve, great buy! So....where's the pic? Picture the old lady hollering "where's the beef"?!! ;-)

Nothing showing yet but I'll be glad to run out and take a picture of dirt for you, Jo. :)

Ha Ha! Looks like the perfect T-shirt mbug!

I'd wear it - a hosta June tshirt would be so cool!

Don - I always lift the pot to see if there are roots visible through the drainage holes (I've never actually taken the plant out of the pot tho...too funny!). Of course, I'm chuckling, but also kinda thinking: well, if Don can do that, maybe I will too!

DD, you give a new meaning to belly shots.

This geek took trash out...then immediately went to front door to check on hostas...finger found a green protrusion of H. 'Antioch'!!! It is going up to 11 (52F) today...I'm going to sniff around the nursery greenhouses this aft.

Came home with a bareroot hosta - 'Christmas Candy' was the only one offered that I did not have. $7.99 each. My first buy of 2016. (inspected EVERY bag to get the most robust root system.)

Okay, Santa, somethings been troubling me... "expanded shale" - I googled and read a little about it, but what are you using it for? I don't know nothin bout no expanded shale!

Jo, Christmas Candy sure is perty. It pays to be a GEEK, eh!

I don't know nothin bout no expanded shale, either!

Sure is perty, DD! I had to go through Alphabet C to see who posted it...it was BC - very perty! :-)

Windy.....here is some basic info on expanded shale that I stole from an old Gardenweb thread. In my pots I use basically a cup and a half of it per 2 cups of potting soil. I use a raised bed blend. I just started using it last year so the jury is still out, but the difference in the drainage and the stopping of the overly wet "mush" is clearly evident:

Expanded shale is like "Vermiculite plus"--it is, as I understand it, "popcorned" shale rock.

Please realize that vermiculite is expanded, or "popcorned", mica. Mica is naturally a rock made of many fine layers--all fragile and glassy (silica rock is, basically, glass--so you have whisper-thin layers of glass puffed out, mostly apart). When expanded, mica forms a very fragile accordian shape that holds a lot of moisture--and usually some air. The air is needed to keep roots from drowning--they have to breathe, too! Alas, mica breaks down quickly into tiny blobs that can form a gray mass of blech -- say, if used at the bottom of a container. Even if the blobs are evenly distributed in your dirt-free soil mix, they still won't hold air anymore--and don't hold much water. Blobby mica is not a sterling aid to roots anymore. Solution? Add more vermiculite (at an annual cost), try another product/substance/method, or move to expanded shale.

Unlike mica (which expands into a fragile accordian shape to make vermiculite), shale starts as a roundish rock. Expanded shale retains a smooth rocky appearance--just larger. (Think of corn expanding into hominy--still a distinct shape, but bulkier.)

What is so wonderful about expanded shale? Expanded shale *always* retains 30% air. Even if you dump it into a bucket of water, the stuff still retains 30% air (in normal environmental conditions). This means your plants'
roots always have access to air, so they are pretty much drown-proofed. Texas A&M tested solid clay soil, in a ground-level bed, with moisture-sensitive plants. Solid clay soil slew the poor test plants rapidly (as anyone with clay soil already knew.....) The plants in the bed with expanded shale survived and *thrived*--that 30% air pocket content saved them. Naturally, the 70% water pocket content provides needed moisture to plants, even in challenging conditions like raised beds/containers in 110+ degree F summers. (Probably great for vacation survival for houseplants, too. Also for people with "blue thumbs" who overwater everything....)

Expanded shale is easy to use. It is useless to put a layer of expanded shale in the bottom of a container--just mix it evenly in the soil. The A&M experiment was 50% clay, 50% expanded shale. Your good compost/coir (or peat, or varied, aged compost only) soil mix will not need that much shale.

Unlike the water absorbing gels, expanded shale will never swell or shrink, so you don't have to worry about the soil (and plants) heaving up or collapsing.

Expanded shale weighs more like lava rock than vermiculite--and has the same ability as lava rock to remain intact for many years (centuries? millenia?) at a moderate initial investment.

I actually got the idea after talking to a rep at Ladybug, which is an all natural product. They are located in Texas so she had no personal experience with hostas, but after describing what I was after and knowing what she did know about hostas, this was her suggestion.

http://www.ladybugbrand.com

Very interesting! Thanks for the info. I'll keep this in mind for potted hostas, and maybe other plants.

santamiller, that was really interesting! I'm glad windy asked you about expanded shale. I'd like to try some minis in pots again someday. I rotted the ones I had, so I'm only going to try again if I think I have a good solution. Although, I have no idea where I'd find expanded shale around here, but now it's on my radar to look for it.

I recently received a bromeliad as a gift... I'll bet the expanded shale would be a good addition when I repot it. Apparently they need really good drainage and humidity - so I guess I'll place the pot on a saucer with stones and a little water. Our level of humidity in the house is okay, but not real high.

Windy- Broms are not all that sensitive to humidity. I've grown them for 8-10 years and never bothered with adjusting humidity.

tj

Oh, that's good to know tj... it's quite a beautiful plant with burgundy-colored bracts at the top. I hope it will eventually bloom.

Even in Texas, expanded shale is hard to find (as I understand it, it's mined and fired here). As far as I know, only one nursery has it in Dallas. Home Depot used to carry it, but doesn't any longer, nor does Lowe's. A local radio horticulturist suggested it to me (then I looked it up on Aggie horticulture website). He suggested 30%, with pine bark fines and peat making up the rest of the mix.

It's really heavy. With the name, expanded shale, I expected it to be like vermiculite. It's not, it's like rocks.

bk

bk.....are you going to try that mix?