Garden Myths That Won't Go Away
By Sue McDavid
UCCE Master Gardeners of El Dorado County
Appeared in the 1-01-25 Mountain Democrat
The primary mission of University of California Cooperative Extension (UCCE) Master Gardeners is to extend research-based knowledge and information on home horticulture, pest management, and sustainable landscape practices to the home gardener. In our many interactions with home gardeners, we frequently hear about so-called gardening remedies and practices that are clearly old wives' tales or more often, information obtained from unreliable Internet sources. Below are some gardening practices that need to be abolished.
Myth: Use gravel for container drainage. No, no, and more no. Why? Water in the upper portion of a container does not move easily through a layer of finer-textured material (the potting soil on top) into a layer of coarser-textured material such as gravel, rocks, broken pieces of pottery, etc. at the bottom of the pot. The result is that water will stay in the potting soil where most of a plant's roots are located far longer than necessary before draining through the non-absorbent material at the bottom and out through the hole. What you end up with is a plant which frequently starts dying because of root rot. Conclusion? Nothing but potting soil should be placed in a plant container.
Myth: Organic fertilizers are better than synthetic ones.
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