How To CORRECTLY Use Vermiculite For Plants? (5-SECRET Benefits)
Vermiculite Is Super helpful In All Areas of Planting & Growing, If You Know The Right Way To use It. So In This Post, We Will Discuss All About Vermiculite Uses & Benefits For Plants, So Keep reading.
What is Vermiculite & How Its Made?
Vermiculite In Itself is a Natural Mineral Product, Mined From Usa & Brazil, After Extraction, Its Processed Through A Procedure To bring It In a Useable Form, Then Its Packed & lunched To The market. In Appearance, Vermilcuite is a Very Light Weight, Golden Brown Flakes Without Any Smell. its used In Many fields, Due To its Absorbant, Insulating & Fire Resistant Properties, We can Use It for Plants, as a Soil Amendment, In Several Ways.
What Are Its Benefits For Plants?
Vermiculite provides Many Benefits To Our Plants, Let Me describe That Shortly, Vermilculite Is Water Retentive, Its Hold Nutrients In It, Just like Biochar & provide It The Plant When Needed.
It Also imroves The drainage & Arreation In The Soil, Which is Very Helpful In Organic Gardening, Its Also Non Toxic & Stelized, Which means It Doesnot Contains Any Kind of germs, Its Totally New. Which can be Super useful For Preparing a Seeds Media.
Its One Quality is that Its very Light Weight, the Soil Media Prepared using vermiculite, Wont Have Any Weight, That’s Helpful For Rooftop Gardening.
Overall It promotes Root Growth, Makes The Media Just Ideal For Seeds or Cuttings, Enhance Immune System of a Plant, Prevents Several fatal Diseases like Root rot, dieback Etc, its a Must Try Thing, So Do Subscribe To Our channel for more Tips & Tricks.
How Can We use Vermiculite For Plant?
The right Way To Use Vermiculite is Extremely Important, So You can Get Most of It.
How to use It as a Mulching Material?
The First Way is To Simply Use It as a Mulching Material, You may Know Mulching Plants Is Very Beneficial, Its Promotes Microbial Life, Makes The Soil Better, Protects The Water From Drying Out, & So On. & Vermiculite is One of Best Things To use as Mulching Material, Simply make a thin Layer of vermiculite On The Soil Of Any Plant.
You Learn Indepth About Mulching & Its Benefits for Plants, from Here. To Much Thick Layer Can Be disturbing for a Plant, only 1 Inch Thick Layer On The Soil Surface Is Enough.
How To Use Vermiculite For Growing Seeds?
Another Easy Way To Use vermiculite is To Use It Seeds Media. In Your Seed Starter, You Can Use A Small Amount of Vermiculite In Your Seeds media & Use it For Growing Seeds.
Only 10% of vermiculite Is Enough, Dont Use More Than 10-15%.
With This Seed Starter, The Germination rate of Seeds Will Be Much more & The Seedlings Will Be Stronger As Well. You can Also Buy a Seeds Starter & Vermiculite From This Link.
How To Use Vermiculite In Potting Mix?
Another Simple Way To use vermiculite For Plants is in a Potting Mix. If You Are Preapring a Potting Mix For a Sensitive Plant, May For a rare Variety of a House plant, You Can Use vermiculite in This Potting Mix, Just a Small Amout Like 10-15% In Enough.
Using Vermiculite For Hardy Plants, is Not Ideal, If you Wanna fill a big Grow Bag, Here vermiculite Will Cost You To Much, So No Need To Use, The Plants Will Adjust on Their Own.
How To Use Vermiculite While Transplant?
Another Useful Way To apply Vermiculite is While The repotting or Transplant, You Can Simply Make a Layer of Vermiculite At The Base of The pot.
This Will Makes The Drainage Very Ideal, That is very Important For a Repotted plant.
After The transplant, Keep only a moderate Amount of Moisture in The Soil & You Will See Your Plant Will Recover Very Well. It Will Be On Its feet Soon & Start Growing.
How To Use Vermiculite For Growing Cuttings?
Another Way To Use Vermiculite is As a Hydroponic media. You Can Grow A Cutting Only in a vermiculite container.
You Know The Quality of Vermiculite To Hold Moisture deep Inside, So Cuttings Will Grow In Such an Environment Very Fast.
You can See The Results On Your Screen. But Remember, You Also Need To Add Nutrients In The Water, In Order To Keep Such A Plant in This Bottle.
Can We Use This For All Plants?
Following an Ideal Way, Vermiculite can be used For All Type of Plants, Either its a House plant, a Succlent or cacti, A flowering Plant Or a Vegetable Plant. But its Mostly used For Seeds, rare House Plants, Succulents & Cacti Plants. Just Follow a Correct Way & Enjoy Better Growth.
Diferences Between Perlite & Vermiculite?
If We Talk About Perlite & Vermiculite, Both Works Almost The Same But There is Some Difference. Beside Their Different Appearances, Perlite is neutral In Ph, While The Vermiculite Is Alkaline In Nature, Perlite Is Much Lighter & Porous Then Vermiculite, Still They can be replaced With OneAnother. A detailed Guide On Perlite & Its Amazing Benefits Is added Here.
What Side Effects It Has?
There are Also Some Side Effects You May face While Using Vermiculite, & Here is How to Avoid Them.
1-Alkaline PH:
Another drawback of vermiculite is That It can cause Root Rot, Yes Prevent Root rot & Cause Root Rot As well. in a Vermculite Media, Doesnot Mean You Can Water HowEver You Like, Too much Moisture In SOil Eventually Cause Root Rot, No matter In Has Vermiculite Or Not. A Small Amount of Vermiculite Can Soak The Extra Moisture From The Soil,But You Need To Be Careful As Well.
3-Inhalation;
Vermiculite Also Contains Some Dust, That its Powdered Form, & Inhaling It Can be Really harmful, So use A facemask While Handling Vermiculite. A Good Quality Vermiculite Is also Added Here, if You Like To Buy.
4-NutritionLess:
Another Side Effect or misconception is that Its Nutritionless, Vermiculite Itself Doesnot Contain Any Nutrients, It absorbs nutrients From The Soil, So using Only Verimculite can be A Bad Choice, You Need To Use Other Soil Amendments Along, For a releable Mixture. There is a Guide On different Soil Amendments From Here, You can Follow That.
So its All ABout vermiculite for Plants, One Of The easiest Way To Add Nutrients In Vermiculite is To use Compost, You Can Also Make Compost At Home By Decomposing Vegetable Peels, Here is a Detailed Guide You can Follow.
