I am sure there will be many opinions on this but I think that to use the clay as a substrate to grow plants on will be mostly an exercise in "death by clay", at least for plants that you care about( I am sure Oxalis would thrive in it). Put it in the kiln and make rocks out of it and you're in business. Jim Hatchett Eagle, Idaho zone 5
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Nathan Miller Sent: Friday, February 11, 2011 12:26 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [Alpine-l] Clay bed My wife and I recently lost our ceramic studio space and had to move it all home. Among other things, we have a few hundred pounds of dried ceramic clay. I've been running my reclaim through a plaster bat and firing them as ceramic "rocks" that I'm using to build rock garden features and stepping stones. I was planning on sending all this clay through that process as well. Then my wife suggested just piling it up and turning it into a clay bed. That's an interesting--and less labor- and time-intensive--idea. Such a bed would be much like how I envision the much-maligned gumbo clay that some east of the Rockies must endure. While most of us grow our plants in some mixture of gravel, there are other worthy plants that don't grow in gravel, but rather in heavy soils, even heavier than the alluvial silt-loam here in the Willamette Valley floor. I have two questions to pose to this list: -Should I attempt this? -If so, what plants should I consider for this kind of substrate? -Nathan Miller Newberg, OR Zone 8-ish ____________________________________________________________________________ ________ Now that's room service! Choose from over 150,000 hotels in 45,000 destinations on Yahoo! Travel to find your fit. http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097 _______________________________________________ Alpine-l mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/alpine-l _______________________________________________ Alpine-l mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/alpine-l
