"W" wrote:
"Stephen Henning" wrote in message
news
"W" wrote:
3) I know you should not use peat moss directly as the soil, but could
you
put in a base of peat moss well under the plant just to give it a
reservoir
of water that the roots could grow down to and across? Is there any
harm
in having a small top layer of peat moss, just to give a slow drip of
water
down to the roots from the top?

Peat moss is a soil ammendment, not a soil. It rots and then you will
have nothing, so do not treat it as a soil. Mix it with soil. Never
use as a mulch either. It dries out easily and is useless. Its novelty
is that it acts like a sponge, holding water while keeping the soil from
being too wet. That is what it should be used for.

The only confusing thing in the above are these points:

1) If peat moss acts as a sponge, then why also say it dries quickly?

When used on the surface as a mulch, air and sun dry it out quickly
since it is very porous and open.

When used in the soil as a soil amendment, it soaks up free water and
just maintains an airy but moist under ground environment which is ideal
for azaleas and other rhododendrons.

2) If the peat moss will eventually rot away to nothing, why use it mixed
with soil? Or maybe the question becomes how often would it need to be
replaced to counteract the tendency to rot away?


When used as a mulch, when it rots it forms a dust that blows away.

When used as a soil ammendment, when it rots it mixes with the soil
forming a loam.

You don't mix anything with the soil on an established azalea plant.
Azaleas have shallow root and when you disturb the soil, you disturb the
roots, a bad idea. So the soil mix is designed to give the plants an
optimum start and the when it stabilizes over time it should become a
good acidic loam soil with good drainage.
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