I tried out coir (Coconut fibre) because I was and still am worried about the
rape of the peat bogs in the UK and Northern Europe. I still have half of my
plants in peat and sand mixtures and the other half in Coir and sand
mixtures. In every case the plants involved in the comparative tests are
either clones or seeds, half of which are sown and raised in each of the
alternative mixtures. I challenge anyone to tell which is grown in which
medium from the growth and flowering.
It seems to me to be illogical to lambast a nursery in the USA for selling
plants gathered in the wild if at the same time, by insisting on using peat,
we are destroying the wild environments themselves. But perhaps I am just
being over emotional.
Someone mentioned Geoff Hamilton in the last newsletter, well Geoff was a
superb gardener and a great advocate of environmently friendly gardening and
he experimented in the use of coir as an alternative for peat and travelled
to Sri Lanka and other countries to see for himself rhe conditions under
which coir was produced. He came to the conclusion that, not only was coir
environmently friendly, but it also helped to provide work for people in
areas of great poverty.
Geoff died at age 59 a couple of weeks ago taking part in a charity cycle
ride despite having recently recovered from a triple heart bypass operation.
I would like to think that the substitution of an decent alternative to peat
and the preservation of an important wildlife environment would be the sort
of memorial he would most appreciate.
I promise that I will not return to this subject again except in reply to
queries and to report progress, but I feel better after getting it off my
chest!! Thanks for listening.
Best wishes ,
Peter Smale