7 replies to this topic

[bogman]

Does anyone know can this be used with peat, instead of silica sand? From what I know, glass is made of silica, with additives like soda and calcium carbonate... I dont know it those additives can leach into the soil, once added. I guess not, because they are locked up in the glass cristals... what do you think? I have a lot of glass I can use, and that would be great, because I have no access to original silica and perlite... One guy wrote that he uses this in his bog garden, and that it is great... apparently, where he comes from, he cannot buy silica sand as well, so he uses this... It looks great once crushed, and you get christals of differend diameters like less then a milimeter to 4-5mm. It has fantastic white color, and larger particles are transparent... It looks like crushed ice! :) (Im talking about non colored type) I guess that would also inhance the sun shine, and that plants like sarracenias and dionaeas would look even more colorful this way... what do you think??? :)

[mantrid]

Glass is inert so I dont hink it will harm your plants

[Dianne Salter]

Hi Bogman

We have tried it in some of our plants.  It seems to be fine.  We have even used it as a top dressing for some Drosera and Pinguicula and they seems to be doing a little better as the base of the plant is not sitting in wet peat.

Dianne

[bogman]

that is great! that would solve my problem completely,since I always have glass available, and silica sand is hard to get here... at least pure and clean... I also put some of it as a top dressing to d. filiformis and dionaeas... lets see how will they perform!  thank you both for responds! :)

[Daniel G]

Hmmm, interesting.
I'll try it too, see how i fare.

[Ian Salter]

It will be wise to give it all a good rinse through as this product is from all sorts of crushed bottles with labels and bits of plastic in the mix and sometimes what appears to be minerals (likely where they scooped it off the floor)

[mobile]

The bag of crushed glass I got from a large DIY chain contained quite a lot of plastic bits. I assumed they were bottle tops. Putting the sand into a bucket of water helps separate them, as they float to the top.

[bogman]

So far, so good! the plants dont seem to mind glass in their medium... it looks great as well! This is really a revolutionary solution to me! I even noticed that one sarracenia is coloring better to the bottom, due to the glittering of glass crystals on the full sun! great!