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Dolomite

Pyro

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Moderator
So because of my onw stupidity I might have condemmed 90% of my Ping collection to painful death. The reason? Dolomite.

I picked this up at the store the other day after I had a long conversation with the garden center guy. It is a pelleted form of dolomite and I thought it might be an ideal substitute to my crushed coral for Mexi-Pings. Most dolomite I have seen before has always been powdered for quick solubility. I specifically asked the garden center guy if the pellets disolved and he assured me that they were ment to stay as pellets to act as an aerator as well as a mineral additive. Turns out he was wrong.

Long story short, I repotted every single one of my Mexis in a 1:1:1:1 dolomite/perlite/vermiculite/peat mix last Sunday. Yesterday I had to drop a fet boxes in the sunroom and I smelled a horrid stench. It was coming from the Pings. All the trays were full of black water and the media in all the pots had dropped to about half the depth of the pot. The domolite had totally disolved and basically everything was getting lime burned.

I repotted everything in my original crushed coral mix and am hoping for the best.

The moral of the story: When you are trying out new media, only do it on one plant and preferably an expendable one at that!!
 
Maybe it's not too late to take leaf cuttings? Sorry to hear about your 'experience'.

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Travis, my condolences!
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That blows! You should go complain to the store that sold you that stuff; they really should know their stock better than that, or at least be honest enough to say "I don't know." That kind of stuff would NEVER be tolerated at my old job.
~Joe
 
Wow! THAT SUCKS! How many mexican pings do you have? Jeez...I hope they're still ok... I hardly ever listen to the people in garden centers only 10% of the time do they have any clue what they're talking about. It's a shame really, concidering you're probably not the only one this has happened to, Pyro. x.x
 
Sorry to hear that.Let us know if they make it,if they don't I have a few spare pings I could send you.

Jerry
 
This is why I dont trust garden centers. The only things I trust Pike's( a G.A. general nursery) for is pre-packaged sphagnum peat, pre-packaged perlite, pre-packaged succulent mix(for my haworthias) and pre packaged orchid bark for drainage in Nep. mix. These people working at garden centers have no idea what they're doing.....
 
Pyro (Travis),
What is "Domolite"? I am familiar with Dolomite as a form of lime with a high concentration of magnesium. Is this what you are referring to?

I am also familiar with Diatomaceous Earth, which is basically microscopic silica crystals.

But I have never heard a word about anything called Domolite.
 
There is something called diatomite which is somehow connected to Diatomaceous Earth. Could this be the "domolite" in question or am I way off?
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Cheers,
Corey
 
  • #10
This is why Im not keen to try out these "exotic" materials such as domolite and coral powder, I stick to 1:1:1:1 peat, perlite, sand, vermiculite for all my mexican Pings, temperate ones get 2:1:1 peat, perlite, sand and warm temperate get basiclly the same as temperate, but with a bit more peat in the mix.

And I know what you mean Chrono about garden centre people not having a clue about what they have, once, a while ago, I asked a lady where the moss peat is and if they have it.
She looked extremely confused and shoock her head and said: no, but we have moss for hanging baskets
And the irony? She was standing right next to lots of huge bags which contained moss peat

Im sorry this happened ot you Pyro
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But, Pings are lime resistant so Im confident that they will be fine
 
  • #12
Oh man! That's terrible!

Best of luck to your and your pings - you always seem to have strong plants, so I know that they'll have a decent chance at pulling through. If not, you know forum members will help you replace them.
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