raising the acidic level in soil

Jane McGary janemcgary@earthlink.net
Tue, 27 Mar 2012 08:57:51 PDT
Ina asked,

>I have some propagating sand to plant my Tecophilia bulbs, but it is
>neutral.  As Jane says, it needs to be acidic.  Do I mix in some
>sulphur?  Flowers of Sulphur?

No, do not bother to make your neutral sand more acidic. Neutral is 
fine. I merely mentioned the acidic nature of the substrate because I 
knew that there is limestone, and presumably lime soils, in parts of 
New Zealand where Ina lives. It is rare that plants from limestone 
areas require alkaline soils as long as you supply adequate 
fertilizer, but plants from acid soil areas sometimes respond badly 
to lime soils. The pH of the potting mix I used for almost all my 
bulbs for years was around 6.

Jane McGary




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