Compost - the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

[NightHawk]

Has anyone come across a make of compost that doesn't look like straw once it's dried out?

We are using Westland Multi-Purpose Compost with added John Innes at the moment, but as you can see from the photo below the flower bed looks awful, with pale brown straw bits everywhere.    It looks great when you first get it out of the bag and it's full of moisture, nice and dark.

This is the new Alpine bed we're creating, and the white bits you can see is just grit for drainage.

Obviously once the bed is finished we will use gravel to cover the whole area. But this is the compost I have been using to take cuttings.

I mix the compost with grit for drainage and then use it for cuttings.

Am I using the wrong stuff? I did try to get some see/cutting compost locally but they won't have any big bags in until later in year. Seems daft to me, why not have it in all the time

We have been using peat-free compost for awhile now, besides local garden centres don't sell compost with peat anymore.

So what does everyone else use? Can they suggest anything better to try? 

Kathy

[Palustris]

I use B&Q Peat free compost, but you do need to riddle it first as it is full of large lumps of bark and the occasional flint. I am not impressed with any of the ones I have used to be honest, none of them are easy to use. Friend who grows huge numbers of bedding plants for a stately home darn sarf has just been forced to transfer to bark based and he is very unhappy about it.
Hundreds of ages ago when we used to go to Harlow Carr they were doing trials of peat free and peat based composts. I wonder what the results were.
The 'added John Innes' amuses me. John Innes is the name of a Horticultural Institute in California. They did a lot of experiments to find the best compost for various uses, seed sowing/cuttings..growing on..and long term. They came up with the John Innes Formulae which defined the amount of top soil, sand, peat and fertilizer to be mixed together for the said purpose. So what does 'with added John Innes' actually mean? Odd!
I suppose in the end as you are going to gravel mulch the bed the appearance does not matter, but it is annoying is it not?
Have you given any thought to the size and type of grit/gravel you intend finishing the bed with yet?

[NightHawk]

Thanks Eric

I have never tried B&Q compost, I rarely get to go there although there is one about 5 minutes drive from where I work

Last lot of compost I got that Westland "stuff" was from Peter Barratts now Wyvale. Seemed cheap at the time.

When I go around to my Mother's and watch her using her compost I could cry..........she bought what seems to be dozens of bags about 3-4 years ago now and is still using it up ........its that wonderful dark rich peat stuff. The stuff that we all understand why we shouldn't use it, but deep down we wish we could

I plan to use 5-10mm Golden Flint on the alpine bed. I thought the colour would look good as the backdrop for my bed is a golden euonymous.

I've already bought it so I hope its ok

Kathy

[Palustris]

No problem I was just wondering. We use a 12 mm gravel of a neutral colour  (cheap from Wickes!) over most of our beds. No reason other than cost and that it fits in with the beach style rocks we have used (glacial erratics if you want the real designation )
Sounds good.
Is that the Euonymus japonica variegata? My mother had a lovely one in her garden which one year produced huge numbers of seeds. Everyone which germinated produced a pure green plant. Very disappointing.

One final thunk. The J.I. formula ALWAYS included peat so even odder if a non peat compost contained it, you think!

Very naughty but at present I am using 1/4 peat based to 3/4 bark based. I find it holds more moisture for longer and as  important ,it hold nutrients too.

[NightHawk]

No Eric its Euonymous Fortunei Emerald'Gold. Planted it more years ago than I care to think about. Planted next to what was then a dinky little conifer thats now a monster

The Euonymous has sort of spread against the back fence, through the conifer and sideways a bit:)

I put trellis up behind it years ago and its climbed up it.

The birds love it, its a great hidey hole from danger.

I recently planted 2 ferns under it, looks better than a black hole. Ferns that love deep shade I might add

Kathy

[JeanV]

WE have a local firm (Welshpool) that delivers Organic Horse Manure Compost:L this is totally black composts like you get from a Wormery : it is expensive but I imagine you can get it eksewhere. NOte it is NOT unrotted horse manure but compost truly! I spread it as a mulch and it looks good and brings its own worms with it!

[Palustris]

Three cheers for the Dingle eh?
I have iust riddled some of the compost heap which has been 12 months in making and that is as good as anything I have ever made.