Silicone Implants

[bluedog]

I've heard through the grapevine about some gel-bead thing-a-ma-gigs that you stick in the ground with your plants and they retain water for them. The person who told me about them said she read an article where you could actually plant an astilbe in a plastic bag with holes in it and a few of these hydrogels from outerspace and water it like a normal plant rather than the high maintenance mother $#@*&^ that it is. (Sorry for the language ^_^) those astilbes are pretty though :wub: Mine always end up looking like those pipe cleaner things you play with as a kid. Not very impressive.

[Koromo]

I've used various water storing crystals in my pots and containers, and the present lot I've got says it can be used in flowerbeds and vegetable plots as well. It's called 'Swell Gel' but the last stuff I had was called 'Crystal Rain' - it will surely have different names over there. It looks like small white granules in the packet, which swell up (when damp) to pea-sized lumps of transparent gel.

I think it does help my plants which don't cope with hot, dry conditions in containers.

http://homepage.mac.com/koromo/Emoties/Smilie.gif
K.

[Rich]

Since using these in our hanging baskets we haven't looked back. They are particularly usefull if one is at work all day.

A few years ago Gardener's World on TV tried an experiment.

Four vegetable beds.
1 was raised using only organic means
1 used chemicals
1 was left to fend for itself
1 had the crystals dug in before planting but no fertilisers.

The crystals produced the best vegetables.

[MrSeedy]

I think it's been a couple of years since I mentioned the crystals and my desire to try them, and though I had a free "sample" package lieing around my house for years, with my very disorganized "style" , I've long since "misplaced" the package.
Someone on BS offered to send me some, but I've forgotten who , at this point. Anyway, it being late for potting most things up now for outdoors, I'm most likely not need them til next year. My only major concern with them however, is weather related and I've wondered if you live in an area with lots of heavy rains, they might cause those potted plants and even ones in the ground to stay a bit too wet for longer periods and you might have more problems with roots rotting???
Oh well, but that's gardening , and even in the case of using heavy mulches to keep soil cool and moisture retentative, you can have problems with excess rain and cool conditions sometimes, and then you should almost remove all that mulch, at least til the weather warms and dries a bit. Seems, I've gotten a bit off the topic again , but what else is new??