Palm soil, ornamental plant soil and potting soil: It seems as if there is a special soil for each variety. But is that really necessary?
The most important things at a glance
What is Universal Earth useful for?
As a rule, it does not have to be special soil for the flowers. Most plants can handle conventional all-purpose soil. However, this should be of high quality:
- In the heat and lack of water, the earth should not shrink.
- If watered more heavily, it should not tend to waterlogging.
- After drying out, it should be able to absorb water again immediately.
There is the following advice for buying the soil: touch the potting soil. Good potting soil has a very loose structure. Large and coarse lumps are a sign of poor quality. In this mostly compacted soil, plants find hardly any nutrients, no oxygen and far too little moisture. Some cheap products are also enriched with Styrofoam, shards or parts of branches.
When purchasing, make sure that the date of manufacture is as recent as possible. Otherwise the long-term fertilizer contained in the soil may already have dissolved.
How is soil properly stored?
But even good potting soil can suffer from poor storage. Hobby gardeners should not buy wet substrate sacks. The humidity can promote infestation with fungi and fungus gnats. The humus content of the product is also important. Humus ensures that the nutrients are stored in the soil and that the soil is nice and loose. The salary should be between five and seven percent.
If the substrate is already enriched with fertilizer, the plants are supplied with nutrients for six to eight weeks – after that the hobby gardener has to provide supplies according to the needs of the plants.
Does the soil need to be fertilized?
Buyers can see on the packaging how much fertilizer the soil already contains at the time of purchase:
- Typ 0 is unfertilized. This is the so-called unitary earth.
- Type P is weakly fertilized. This soil is suitable for sowing and transplanting young seedlings.
- Typ T is nutritious. This soil is suitable for the further growth of young plants, but also as a pot substrate for larger plants.
Which plants need special soil?
However, there are exceptions: Some plants have very special requirements for the garden soil – and of course also for the pot substrate. These include pond plants such as water lilies, water hazel or water mint. If they are planted in all-purpose soil, the water will be too enriched with nutrients, according to experts. This promotes algae growth. To counteract this, you can use pond soil. It contains a special composition of clay minerals and quartz sand. An alternative is the use of gravel or clay granules.
Heather and ericaceous plants such as rhododendrons, azaleas, ericas and callunas also have special requirements. These plants need special soil with a low pH. It should be between 4.5 and 5.5. To achieve this value, you can also mix in acid leaf soil or low-lime loam.
