How To Use Perlite For Plants CORRECTLY? – 4 Effective Ways To Use Perlite!

Perlite is One Of The Most beneficial Soil Conditioners. If Used in a Correct Way, It can Decrease The Chance of Many Fatal Plant Issues, Like Root Rot, Fungus, dieback & many more. So In This Post, We Will See How To Use perlite, What are Its Benefits & Much More, So Keep Reading.

What is Perlite?

Perlite is Made From Volcanic Glass, its a Natural thing, With extremely Good Drainage & Arreation. It Doesnot Contain Any Nutrients In it. In Appearance, Its a White Colored, Very Light Wieght & porous Granular Material Without Any strong Smell. Its Widely Used In Professional Potting Mixes By The Nursery Owners. Its Main Purpose of use Is To Make The Soil Media Porous, Well draining & Loose.

Why Its So Important For Plants?

Correctly Using Perlite have Several Benefits, Like better Drainage, zero Water Logging Issues, Improved Soil Looseness, Excellent Arreation Around The Roots & Better Root Growth. & Its one Quality is That It Absorbs Moisture & Store It deep Inside, & Provide It back To The Roots When They try To Suck. So Overall Its a Super useful Thing, & You Should Must Try This.

How To use It For Plants?

Now lets Know In What Ways We can use Perlite for Our Plants.

While Transplant Or Repotting…

The First Easy Way is To use It While The Transplant. Specially While Transplanting House Plants, That are at A Greater Risk Of Root Rot, Or fungal Issues. You Can Make a Layer of perlite At The Base of The Pot, Make Sure It Contains Drainage Holes.

Now You Can Add Soil & Do The Whole Repotting Like The Ordinary Way, To Learn The Safest Way Of Repotting, You Can Follow This Guide.

This Plant With The Perlite at The Base, Will have an advantage of Better Drainage.

Hopefully It Will Recover Within a Few days & Start Growing.

In Potting Mixes….

Another easy Way To Use perlite For Plants, Is to Mix It In a Potting Mix. While Preparing Any Kind Of Potting Mix, You can Include Perlite In It. There Is No Need To Use in an Ordinary soil Media, For example, If You wanna Fill a Big Grow Bag, Then Perlite have No Use In This case. WHile if You Wanna Grow a Cutting, or Sensitive House Plant, Then Perlite Could Be Very Useful. Simply Add 1 Part of Perlite In 4 to 5 Parts of Your Potting Soil, This Is Enough To Make The Mixture Better.

In Seeds Media…

Another Easy Way To Use Perlite Is To Add this Into The Seeds Media.

Seeds are Very Sensitive To The Soil Media, If Your Seed Starter Is Hard Or may Be Water Blocking This can effect The germination of the Seeds Very Badly.

So Using 1 part of Perlite In Your 3 parts of Seed Starter Will Optimize It Very Well.

& You Will Get Much Better Germination rate, The Seedlings Will Be Healthy & Stronger Too. You can also Buy A Pure Quality Perlite & a Seed Starter From Here.

In Cacti & Succulents Mix…

You Can Also use Perlite In Your cacti & Succulents mixture, cacti & Succulents are Sensitive Kind Of Plants, & using Perlite Will make The Drainage Best For Their Healthiest Growth. You can Mix 1 Part of Perlite In 4 parts of Your Soil media. An Example Recipe using Perlite In Succlents Potting Mix Is also Linked Here.

For What Plants We Can Use This?

Using an Ideal Method, You can use perlite On all Type of Plants, But Its Most Useful For Senstive Plants, for example, the rare House plant Varieties, Cacti & Succulents, For Growing Seeds & So On. There is No Need To use It For Seasonal Flowering or Fruiting Plants, Even For Permanent Plants, They are Already Hardy Enough To Bear The Issues.

Some Precautions!

There are Also Some Precautions You Should Keep In Mind, While Handling Perlite.

• First of all Mix It Very Well WIth Your Mixture, Watering Over The Perlite Can float It away, Because Its Very Light Weight.
• Using Too much Perlite has No Use, Only a Small Amount Is Enough To Make The Whole mixture Better.
• Use a Good & Pure quality Perlite, To Avoid Any Contamintion Is The Soil, a cheap & Pure Perlite is also Linked Here.
• You Should also use a Face mask WHile Using Perlite, Because It has Some Powdery Perlite That can Be Very Irritating If You Inhale It. So Use a facemask.
• Always use It As a Soil Conditioner, Just To Make The Soil Better, It Cant Work As Whole Soil Media. It lack nutrition. It Doesnt Contain any Plant Element, that;s Why There Should be a Fertilizer In The Soil, Otherwise Your Plants Wont Grow Well. You can Also use Compost, That You can make At Home, By Decomposing The Vegetable Peels. Here is a Detailed Guide On This.