horticultural grit

horticultural grit - is that used in heavy soil purely for aeration and drainage?

is it possible for me to use broken up rubble instead?
all my local garden centres do not have any horticultural grit in stock.

i realize it won't be as small as horticultural grit - but will it suffice?

thanks.

 

It might be OK if reasonably small -normal soil has rocks in it, after all- but if it contains a lot of mortar it might affect the alkalinity/acidity of the soil. But that might not matter much.

I think it would be OK as an addition to garden soil but I wouldn't use it as an addition to compost.

 

I think every new home in Britain has a garden full of broken bricks and mortar rubble!

Cheers, Tony.

 

not sure which is the easier option for me:

1) go to the closest b&q that has the grit in stock - a 10 mile round trip - and carry the 25kg bag of grit on my bicycle. yikes!

2) expend energy busting up rubble with my sledgehammer. yikes!

whichever way you cut it, i'm going to do a lot of donkey work.

why-o-why does it always happen to me?

 

What about waiting till the local GCs get it restocked, they are bound to get some in, in the new year.

 

Why not just order some and have it delivered?

 

Horti Grit is fine for small areas, but can be very expensive to buy the amount needed to do any REAL use for digging into larger areas. If its large you may be better with pea gravel and that can be delivered cheaply and easily to save you getting it a bag at a time on your bike!!

But the rubble is a great addition dependent on the plants you intend to put in. If you were going to plant a good deal of Meditteranian plants for example like Lavenders, Marjorams, Thymes, and others such as Fiscus, Cistus, Verbascums and a large number of others etc then the rubble would be a far superior option to grit. That fact that rubble can change the PH doesnt really matter with many of the Mediterranian sun lovers as they dont really like a peaty soil. So the rubble does a much better job for certain types of plants as it gives it a more impoverished structure that they prefer.

Obviously if you plan to plant Heathers, Hamamelis, Camelias etc, any of the ericaceous group of plants then you certainly wouldnt want to be using the rubble as they wont appreciate the PH tipping to Lime!

Essentially it depends entirely on what you intend to plant (doesnt it always) as to which will be best for the job. But in general, anything that doesnt have a specific PH preference will not mind it one bit, and as mentioned some group of plants will positively benefit from it. And the added bonus is it will be free if you already have it.

 

being a novice (ie thicko!) gardener, i bought the shrubs first and then, after getting home, read the instructions.

i'm too impatient - just want to get the work over and done with. hence, waiting for the local sheds to get stock or ordering it with likely delays occurring during the run-up to xmas will drive me mad.

the shrubs i'm plating are: euonymus silver, osmanthus and aucuba japonica.

so, will rubble do the trick or will these need horticultural grit?

thanks.

 

oh, just to add, i'm in london and AFAIK, the soil is clay.

 

I would agree with Apothocary. My local builders merchant said they could order a ton of horticultural grit for me, but it was double the price of 10 mil gravel. So I used the gravel, which was also pretty sharp. I also used sharp sand. A good spread in size of anything sharp would do the job for clay, also loads of organic matter.

 

The first and last of these are very tough and easy to grow so will probably be fine even if you don't follow the rule book.

 

Why add rubble to the soil? I wouldn't. It will make it a nightmare to dig if you ever decide to change it.

Is this question prompted by an actual current drainage problem that has not been solved by simply digging over the soil? Ie is the soil so depleted of structure that it just compacts again within days of being dug?

As for patience when it comes to doing the garden, I used to be the same. I'm afraid you just have to learn patience because the garden works to its own calendar.

 

the tags on one or two suggested adding horticultural grit. i'm a novice and am simply following instructions. as i don't have horticultural grit, i thought busted up rubble would be a reasonable substitute.

in recent times, with near daily rainfall, my garden does get waterlogged.

hence, anything i can to do to alleviate the problem of drainage (& aeration) must help - yes?

 

As I said any sharp material will do the trick. Its the surface area that aids drainage, and smaller pieces have more surface area in total. So it doesn't help to have large lumps and as Clueless said larger lumps would create problems.

I improved the clay in my borders, where I wanted to be able to dig. But if you are just growing shrubs, with no digging, its less important.

Organic material is also a great help. And it encourages worms, who are self employed drainage hole constructors.

 

as you can see, my garden does get waterlogged.

to be clear - when i say rubble, i do mean smallish pieces. ok, it won't be grit sized, but i can get it to be pebble sized.

PeterS, i'll add whatever organic matter i can find.