Is there anything wrong with using a good quality potting mix,
maybe even
one specifically made for trees and shrubs, for newly collected
specimens?
i'll be digging a few big guys this spring and i'm not sure if
i can afford
to buy enough supplies to make the necessary amounts of bonsai
soil. The
plants are getting ripped out if i don't dig them up so waiting
longer isn't
an option. thanks everybody.


It's going to depend on what you mean by "good quality potting
soil." That dark, powdery, vermiculite-filled stuff you buy
packaged in 10- or 20-pound bags at Home Depot, Lowes, Wal-Mart,
or your typical Mom and Pop nursery is the absolute WORST thing
you could plant a tree in. (It's OK for African violets, bulbs,
and others of that ilk.)

If you have a GOOD local nursery that mixes its OWN potting soil
with gravel in it it should do for a while.

You always will be better off with bonsai soil. _I_ use screened
old soil for this kind of stuff (I know, people are shuddering,
but I solar sterilize all of it, and have not lost anything to
disease yet).

If you cannot get a good potting/bonsai soil, you should plant
the trees back into the ground.

Jim Lewis - - Tallahassee, FL - Only where
people have learned to appreciate and cherish the landscape and
its living cover will they treat it with the care and respect it
should have - Paul Bigelow Sears.

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