Jo Trojer wrote:
Hi,
Anyone have a list with the different PH values preferred
pro species? How important is it for bonsai to keep the
correct PH value? Here in Innsbruck we have a high lime
content in our water, does this affect the PH value after
a long period?
Thanks for any help
Jo Trojer - RCI President/Coach Innsbruck - Austria
www.rugby-innsbruck.at
***
Much ado is often made abut pH and bonsai, but except for
ericaceous plants -- Rhododendron, Vaccinium and a few other
flowering, largely evergreen, genera -- the ado is about
nothing much.
Ninety percent of all plants will do fine in a range that
extends a bit on either side of neutral (7 pH). Even water
with a high lime content won't affect that range in the soil
in a well-maintained bonsai -- one whose soil is changed
every 2-3 years and that is fertilized with any regularity
with a balanced fertilizer. And, if you have organic
material in your soil, that will maintain it on the acid
side, or at least neutral. Even azaleas will grow in
neutral soil.
I would not, however, use bonsai soil with a high calcium
carbonate composition or supplement it with lime. If you
know that, for some reason, your soil has a pH of more than
8, adding varying amounts of peat or chopped sphagnum to
your soil should solve the problem. Constant chlorosis is
an _indication_ of pH of 8 or more (7.5 or more in the case
of ericaceous plants).
Someone here has supplied a list of plants' pH requirements
(culled from some bonsai publication) from time to time, but
in MY opinion the list has very little validity for bonsai
since it was developed with field-grown plants in mind. You
should be able to find the list by searching for pH in the
archives.
Jim Lewis -
- Tallahassee, FL - Nature
encourages no looseness, pardons no errors. Ralph Waldo Emerson
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