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Organic soil 4 live plants

Paul Bowen

Member
3 Year Member
Messages
94
What brand of soil do you recommend? I want to incorporate live plants and use real soil for a more natural appearance.

I'm looking for organic but it is challenging finding soil without fertilizer. Any help would be appreciated.
 

Metalman2004

Well-Known Member
3 Year Member
Messages
810
I wish you luck in finding what you're looking for. As far as the regular stores go I don't think it exists (or I haven't found in anyways. EVERYTHING at Home Dept and Lowe's have some sort of fertilizer whether its organic or not. The only execption I've seen without it are topsoil and hummus. Those don't seem to be labeled organic though.

The term "organic" is kind of tricky and doesn't exactly mean much anyway.

I've seen people suggest websites to purchase plants from that are pesticide free for terrariums. I don't recall any of them but I bet those websites would be your best bet to find that kind of soil.
 

Paul Bowen

Member
3 Year Member
Messages
94
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What brand of soil do you recommend? I want to incorporate live plants and use real soil for a more natural appearance.

I'm looking for organic but it is challenging finding soil without fertilizer. Any help would be appreciated.


So I got a bag of scotts organic topsoil but it was crap.

Just left 1 live plant in the planter and some moss for moisture.
 

kormath

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1,000+ Post Club
3 Year Member
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3,565
Location
Idaho
If i recall the training from years back when i worked in landscaping during my first attempt at college all soil has natural fertilizer - nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium (npk) - you won't find any soil without npk, even the "organic" soils have some content of these elements from the decomposition of plants, insects, animals, and their waste.

the problem with buying soil from home depot, lowes, etc. is they're not a soil intended to be used alone. They're all soil amendments intended to be mixed in with soil at location. They all have a higher npk content than natural soil. You'd be best off going to a landscaper or greenhouse than a big box store for soil.

Considering this above is in regards to planting flowers and gardens ;) for a live plant terrarium setup i'd use peat moss mixed with one of these soil amendments. that will cut back on the npk content to be safe for your critters in the terrarium but should still provide enough nutrients for the plants without having to add anything.

LLLReptile has a few really good vids on youtube for vivarium setups, check those out. They're also really good about responding to email questions also. I've emailed them a few times when i was doing research for the snake my son wanted.
 
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