washed river sand
Jane McGary (Tue, 19 Aug 2008 15:55:58 PDT)

The only kind of sand you have to avoid in a seed mix is very silty,
fine-grained sand such as comes from low down on a river. (Of course, you
would not use beach sand either.) "Builder's sand" or "concrete sand"
should do. If you feel that it has too many fines, put it in a fine sieve
and run water through it, or just put it in a large container and run a
hose hard into it for awhile until the fines flow out with the water.

I grow a number of bulbs from western South America and just plant them in
my ordinary seed sowing mix, which is about equal parts of coarse river
sand (easily obtained here), ground pumice, and peat. I almost never make a
special seed sowing soil for a particular plant, except very fine seeds and
Meconopsis.

Jane McGary
Northwestern Oregon, USA

At 04:57 PM 8/18/2008 -0400, you wrote: