Growing a Microbiome with Worm Castings
For those of you who have been taking our newsletter for a while, you may remember that last July we explained the importance of healthy plant microbiomes for the health of our plants. If you missed that article, you can see it on our website here: A Healthy Root Microbiome. It's a complex subject that science is just beginning to understand, but all we really need to know is that plants need to have many different types of healthy organisms growing in the soil around their roots in order to build strong vigor and health all throughout the plant. One of the ways to start a microbiome growing is to use worm castings in your soil.
But... worm castings are rather tricky to use! Just ask us! We've made every mistake there is to make with that pesky stuff, and we thought we should share our hard-earned knowledge with you so you don't have to repeat all the mistakes that we've made. So... adventures with worm castings...
Why Use Worm Castings?
Worm castings are basically worm manure. They are loaded with all kinds of little organisms that make the soil around the roots of plants healthier. Potting soil is almost always sterilized, so there's nothing living in it, which is good in terms of not harming your plant. But it's not good for the microbiome! Plants need living healthy organisms in the soil at their feet. Worm castings get those healthy organisms growing. They are a sort of "starter" for a healthy microbiome.
So What Can go Wrong with Worm Castings?
Worm castings, like most manure, consist of very fine, sticky particles. When you water them, these fine particles stick together so well that a layer of worm castings running on top of or through your soil will actually seal off that part of the soil and prevent water from soaking down through the soil beneath it, like a layer of sticky clay. No one talks about this, or warns you about it, unfortunately! We discovered it the hard way, experimenting with different quantities of worm castings added into our potting soil to see what worked the best.
In our experimentation, a hibiscus planted in pure worm castings started dying almost immediately because the water we poured into it couldn't get down to the roots! It stayed in the top surface of the worm castings and trickled down the sides. But the sticky worm castings globbed and formed a clay-like seal through the rest of the pot that prevented water from spreading uniformly through the soil.
We continued experimenting. A half-and-half mix of worm castings and potting mix stressed the plant greatly. The plant eventually pulled through, but it lost most of its leaves and we really struggled to get our water to percolate all through the pot. This plant was never really healthy, and we eventually pulled it out of that pot and repotted it in a better mix.
Worm castings help create a healthy microbiome even when plants are in pots.
A healthy microbiome makes plants healthier, lusher and more floriferous!
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The right mix of worm casting, amazingly, turned out to be only 10% worm castings with 90% regular soil, with all of it thoroughly mixed together before we put the hibiscus into the pot. It was really important to mix the worm castings evenly through the soil, so that it couldn't stick together in globs that could block the water from whole layers or whole sections of the potting soil. When we did this, the water percolated well throughout the pot, the soil retained moisture well, and also drained well. The plant grew beautifully, lush and green. No other ratio that we tried turned out as well as this one. We have since tested this ratio in our greenhouse over the last 17 years, and it has held up for us as the best possible way to use them.
A Little Bit Goes a Long Way!
For those of us who really adore our hibiscus plants, and want to give them the very, very best care we can, it's very tempting to think that "more" will be "better." But when it comes to worm castings, this is absolutely not true! Think of worm castings as a soil "starter." Just as it takes only a teeny bit of starter added to milk to get yogurt to growing, or added to bread to make sourdough bread or to make yeast grow, it takes only a teeny bit of worm castings to start healthy organisms growing in our plants' soil. So use worm castings very sparingly. A little bit goes a very long way. And be sure to mix them into the soil thoroughly in the pot or in the hole in the ground that you are going to plant into.
Whatever size scoop you use, for every 9 scoops of soil, use only 1 scoop of worm castings. This looks like very little, but it's the perfect ratio. Resist the urge to give your plants more!
If you use any of our HVH Potting Soil mixes, do NOT add more worm castings! Worm castings are already mixed into our soil in the exact 10% ratio that hibiscus need. Just fill your pot and pop your plant in.
If you stick to this ratio, your plants will be healthy and happy!
And on the Light Side . . .
When you start becoming obsessed with hibiscus. . .
(All from Cindy's Personal Experience We're very Embarrassed to Say!)
You know you might be starting to become a bit obsessed with hibiscus. . . if you go grocery shopping, come out with three hibiscus plants and forget to buy food for your family. (Well, it's definitely unusual to see hibiscus at a grocery store! In my defense, I just wanted to find out what kind of hibiscus they were! Wouldn't Charlie be interested too? But no, not so much. He turned out to be much more interested in the food I forgot to get. Sigh...)
You know your hibiscus obsession might be starting to intensify if you move your husband's big-screen TV across the room to make room for more hibiscus plants... Then you move his chair... Then ... well, you kind of ask him if he could just watch TV in the bedroom... (Who would ever expect a major explosion over something like this? A simple "No" would have sufficed!)
You start to think this obsession might be creeping into addiction when you pick up a very hot cup of coffee then spill it all over your husband, your dog, and yourself, because you can't find a single bit of empty space anywhere on your kitchen counters because every millimeter is covered with... hibiscus plants. (But that's where the sunniest windows are! Hibiscus need sun, food doesn't!)
You wonder if this really could be addiction when you take some hibiscus plants to work and can't find any place to put the last one, so you pop it on top of the nearest flat surfaced object... which turns out to be your boss's printer... (Doesn't the guy have any sense of Feng Shui? Honestly!)
OK, you say to yourself, this is starting to really look like an addiction when you realize you have duplicates of a bunch of hibiscus varieties in your house, and you decide that all your family members need hibiscus plants for Christmas gifts this year so you can get them out of the house before your husband sees them. (OK, so your sister's cats killed her plant within 2 days of arrival, but was that really your fault? Of course, she WOULD blame herself, and it did cause her some considerable pain, but... Stop! Time to face some truth here. This is really starting to look like an addiction!)
You panic and start searching for Hibiscus Addiction Treatment Programs feverishly on the Internet after you go online and buy a dozen hibiscus from some other grower who is NOT YOUR HUSBAND! You didn't mean to be unfaithful! You just got tempted by a couple of varieties you saw online, you lost your head in the moment, and IT HAPPENED!!!!!! He'll never understand!!!! YOUR LIFE IS OVER AS YOU KNOW IT!!!!!!!!
NOTE: After months of exhaustive research, I can attest to the fact that there are no Hibiscus Addiction Treatment Programs available anywhere in the Googlable world. Recovery will be a solitary endeavor. Sigh...
Are there are any fellow sufferers out there who would like to start a Hibiscus Addicts Anonymous group? Anyone? Help!!!!!
Please don't judge!
Seedling of the Month...
'Nightfall'
This is 'Nightfall,' our newest seedling of the month. It blooms with a striking, deep blue 6-7" single with a dark burgundy eye surrounded by a huge halo that varies from a glowing red to a dusky burgundy, depending on the weather and time of year. The edges of the flower are lightly ruffled and tinged in a soft pink or orange. 'Nightfall' blooms a lot with consistently beautiful flowers, even when it blooms in its lighter colors as in the photo below at the right. Its parents are two of our best blues, mother 'Out of the Ashes' and father 'Blues in the Night.' We have high hopes for this new seedling. If all goes well, we could have it available for sale as early as sometime this year.
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'Nightfall' with its Darker Colors
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'Nightfall' with its Lighter Colors
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