A Mastering Guide On How to Use Perlite For Plants? (DO & DON’TS Added)
Perlite is Very Much known To Improve Drainage & Arreation Around Roots, & In This Post, We Will dig Deep Into the Benefits of perlite, How To Correctly Use It, can it be Used alone & Much More, So Keep Watching This Post.
What is Perlite & How Its made?
Perlite is a Very Lightweight Granular Material Made From Volcanic Glass That is Purely Natural & Incredibely Porous, but Unfortunately Not Fertile. It is Basically Used In Potting Mixes, & Helps In Enhancing The Drainage & Arreation System of The soil.
What Are benefits of Using perlite?
It Also Provides Some Other Benefits To The Plant, lets Shortly Discuss That.
- Perlite is very Lightweight That is Best For Container Plants and For Rooftop Gardening.
- Perlite Also makes The Soil Very Porous, That is Extremely helpful For Making The Gaseous Exchange Better & better Around The Roots, Its an Extremely Useful thing, For Enhancing The Root Growth.
- Perlite Also Retains Just an Ideal Amount of Moisture In The soil, Not So Much & Not So less. Which is Again a Very Useful Thing.
- Perlite Also Makes The Medium Very Well Draining, Its Because It holds Moisture For a Shorter Time & then Drains It out.
This thing Keeps Several Problems, Away From Your Plants, These Diseases Includes Root Rot, stem Rot, Diseaes caused By Nematodes, Yellow & Curly leaves On The Plant & Much More. So Using perlite elminate The Chance of These Issues In Just one Go.
How To use Perlite For Plants, Soil etc?
Using Perlite In a Correct Way is also an Important Thing.
For using Perlite in your Soil mix, You can Add 1 Part of perlite In 4 Parts of Your Existing Soil mix. If your soil mix is hard & Compact, then Use a Little More. & if your Potting mix is already Loose, Then use less.
If You wanna Use Perlite While Transplant, You can Simply Make a Layer of Perlite At The base. & Then Shift a Plant.
This Will prevent Water Logging & Keep The Moisture Draining.
Perlite can Also Be Used in Your Seed Starter, Simply Include 1 Part of Perlite in 3 Parts of Your Seed Starter. You can also Buy a Good Quality perlite From The This Link.
You can Also Mix 1 part of Perlite in 3 Parts of Your Succulents Mixture, its also Great For Succulents & cacti Plants. Just make Sure To Mix It properly.
For What Plants Can We use Perlite?
Perlite Can Be Used For All Type Of Plants, Depending upon The Requirement, For Example, perlite Is very Light Weight, That’s Why Its Not good For Younger Seedlings, As Its not good for providing Proper Support To The Plant.
Also Perlite Dries Out Quickly, & Might be Not a Good Choice For humid Area Plants, unless You are using a very Small Amount of Perlite, So It Totally depends Upon The Plant, Simply Adjust The Amount depending Upon The Type of Plants, For Succulents & cacti Use More, For moisture loving Plants, Use less.
What Are some of Its Drawbacks?
There are also Some do & donts Of Perlite That You Should Know Before using It.
- First of All Perlite also have Some Dust, That is The Crushed Form Of Perlite, & Its Very harmful If You Breath It In. So Be sure to wear a Mask While Handling Perlite.
- Another Side Effect of perlite is that its so light weight which cause It To Float away While Watering, So either Mix It Properly or Make another layer of Something Heavy Over It, So it Can Absorb The Moisture properly.
- Dont Use Too Much Perlite In Your Mixture, Unless Your Plant is a dry area Plant. Simply Follow a Proper dosage.
- Perlite Dont Have any Nutrition In It, So That’s Why Using It alone is Not a Good Choice,
The ideal way is to make a Mix Of Such Ingredients, There are Many Soil Amendments Feel Free To take a Look of This Article, One of Them Is Compost That Can Be used To add Nutrients In your Mixture, Here is a Detailed Guide To Turn Your Kitchen’s Waste Into a High Quality Compost, Must check it out.