What kind of manure is it? Rather, it’s a lack of soil oxygen that prevents the roots from efficiently extracting nutrients from the soil. Old habits die hard. Susan’s a garden writer, teacher and activist in the Washington, D.C. area. Finally, Michelle, I agree with you completely regarding the remediation of brownfields and the interaction of soil science and horticulture in these complex projects. Every time you plant something you end up with some dirt leftover from the hole and it goes on the pile. I bought some of their product sold as “organic humus” last year and was incredibly disappointed. The confluence of modern day soil science and horticulture is not black and white. Find Timberline mulch at Lowe's today. By the way, down in your neck of the woods, research done a number of years ago on the National Mall illustrated very clearly how a simple layer of mulch maintained over the soil surface can lead to significant increase in soil aggregation in only a couple of years (note that I didn’t say improvement in the “soil”). By incorporating Lime into your Lawn Care Program … So I looked at the bags of topsoil to get the name and company: In this day and age you never know what kind of stuff has been dumped on the ground, or what plants will uptake. Didn’t happen. Notice the nice color behind the photo of the bag? For me, I order it by the truckload and put it wherever caprice leads that day. I could package sawdust sweepings from the lumber yard and call it planting mix. Where is the dirt from? © 2017-18 Orscheln Group. Timberline manufactures mulches, soils and soil amendments. It all goes back to my original post that there’s no such thing as a “bad” soil! There are a wide variety of challenging situations that require a wide variety of solutions. I know, but what’s in it? Firewood. Item #94562. The Pleasures and Perils of Young, Broke Gardens, Compost that’s 4 parts wood fines to 1 part manure, Founding and now managing the pro-science educational nonprofit, Creating and editing the community website. This year I’d already used up all my homemade compost, though. Garden Mix. If I want my new garden to have the nutrients it needs it would sure help to know what’s in the "organically enriched" topsoil I’m adding to it. Which soil should I use for my garden? The brand is Mr. Garden and the words "Organically enriched" are proudly displayed, but no ingredients were to … All I’m trying to do, again, is point out that we often work harder than we need to in the garden. Mix to create your own potting and garden soil. Made from aged pine barks fines and soil additives, Soil Conditioner is especially beneficial for vegetable and flower gardens with sandy or heavy clay soils. On the other hand, the Montgomery County, MD parks and recreation organic leaf humus mix that I bought this spring was WONDERFUL stuff. The city of Vail, Colorado, is located near an alpine timberline in the Rocky Mountains. University of New Hampshire has a basic factsheet on the subject of buying topsoil here: http://extension.unh.edu/Pubs/HGPubs/purchts.pdf. Terry, Besides which, Susan just removed a significant amount of sod from the ground. Thanks for the interesting comments folks…and try to be somewhat nice to one another. Where the lawn is relatively thin because of deep shade (hence, not enough plant food production to support a vigorous lawn due to limited photosynthesis), simply apply a thick layer of mulch over the sparse lawn and plant right through it. 40-lb Top Soil. And, I accept that my rather broad, one-size, fit’s all comment opened the door to myriad “what-if” scenarios. Meanwhile, if you’re not adverse to using a herbicide, simply kill the lawn with Roundup, mulch, then, again, plant right through the dead sod. But then again, I’ve been forced to spend some money on wheelbarrows (for the dirt) and bourbon (for the pain). (By the way, $70.00 for not quite a cubic yard of bagged “topsoil” is a pretty hefty chunk of money, not to mention the environmental cost of manufacturing the plastic and disposing of it). by SusanAfter I’d spent 70 bucks on 25 bags of "topsoil" for my backyard makeover, I thought I’d look at the label to find out exactly what’s in the stuff. The undisturbed sod will serve as a nature weed barrier and will return organic Sure they cost more but its because of the quality of the products inside. Who Says Native Plants have Longer Roots? Item #92432. https://www.homedepot.com/p/1-cu-ft-Top-Soil-50051562/204515238 And what’s up with the lime? Soil importation is one way of addressing depleted soil remediation. Is there a definition of “topsoil” that has to be met for the label designation? © copyright timberline international b.v. 2013; visit also: www.chapelparket.com & www.avancefloors.com creativecreation webdesign This is pretty typical of what the local hardware stores sell. – Cheap – chix manure is way more inexpensive than bags of blended composts. for pricing and availability. Terry, I am willing to accept your notion that we may be working to hard on our gardens. Timberline Contracting will be closed from 12pm Thursday 24th December 2020. We are all gardeners after all. There are many options for green ingredients in your compost pile. Our Focus = Your needs. If you buy fertilizer in a bag you know exactly what you’re getting, because fertilizer is tightly regulated. Why buy “topsoil” in the first place? A versatile and extensive range of products to equip designers and end-users alike with flooring to complement any space - commercial or residential - on any scale. Ah, the old soil amendment/just mulch on top of it discussion. Again, I’m not trying to be critical of Susan’s efforts. Terry, to fill you in on this project, the site slopes downward, so there are no low spots, just pits and holes left over after various plants have been removed to be located elsewhere. These ingredients are difficult to come by naturally, but all of them have a C:N ratio of 10:1 or less: Don’t believe everything you see. White Chip. 3. Or mangroves. We require customers to wear masks/face coverings while shopping in our stores. Timberline Top Soil is a ready-to-use soil that is great for new or established lawns. Well, the Mr. Garden Topsoil is now indistinguishable from my regular home-grown topsoil, so I’m not losing any sleep over it. I’m not saying “use only native plants” (which I think is a croc). All I’m saying (or, at least trying to say), is that I think we often try/work too hard when it comes to gardening/landscaping, etc., because we (including myself) don’t watch how nature works. What makes it “top soil”? CTRL + SPACE for auto-complete. A better description would probably be “chemical free,” but who’s to tell without a lab test? Californian Redwood Mulch. For that matter, can’t she plant whatever she wants? Timberline Top Soil, 40 Lb. I have bought pick-up truck loads of composted cow manure, wonderful stuff, and bags of specialty mix for container gardens, but topsoil, nah. I’m sure that for the vast overwhelming majority of dirt buyers, it doesn’t matter. Terry, just calm down and stop assuming so much. There isn’t anything you can do about soil like that, and I’m sure as hell not growing vegetables in it. So I continued the sleuthing with a phone call to the company, only to be told by the person answering that the ingredients were "all organic." To this day as both a NYS Certified Nursery Professional and ISA Certified Arborist, I’ve never recommended fertilizing a single plant – be it tree, shrub, perennial or bulb (lawns are a different story, but that opens up a whole different can of worms). When you browse our selection, you’ll find large bundles, like 40-pound bags that are native to your region. Government got into the fertilizer regulation business a long time ago because farmers got tired of getting ripped off by bogus products. …”If you put the right plant in the right place – including severely compacted clay soils on new construction sites – all should be right with the world.”, Problem is Terry, gardening plots aren’t always ” right”. From planting gardens to dressing up your landscapes, Timberline has what you . We require customers to wear masks/face coverings while shopping in our stores. Dump it right there!”, (Susan, I got a small MOUNTAIN of pulverized soil (it was black anyway) for $300 delivered. This product has been screened for quality of product and for ease of handling. Pine Shavings. If she tried the E.B. All rights reserved. “Right plant , Right Place” is simply too narrow minded in the current day conditions of brown fields, toxic clean up sites and man made altered topography. JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. topsoil in a short period of time. We can offer advice on which soil will best suit your particular project and budget best. The organic matter in the bagged soil isn’t going to hurt anything. Lawn & Garden » Lawn Care » Potting Soil; Great for filling, leveling and mixing. However, if I wanted to grow some of the plants that I am growing now on my formerly compacted soils, there is no way I could have done it without the work and amendment that I did. Told that twice. As firefly noted in the former tannery that she is planting in or the brown fields that we are currently reclaiming or the former decomissioned military site that is now a planned residential community or other severely compromised earthscapes that are being renovated into a residential gardenscape. Item # 700681. When required I purchase bags of blended soil from a local “soils specialist” , American Soil products . Meanwhile, getting back to (not) working harder than necessary in the landscape and garden, why would you ever want to strip sod from a new landscape/garden bed? * Quantity: -+ Free Store Pickup. Timberline, upper limit of tree growth in mountainous regions or in high latitudes, as in the Arctic.Its location depends largely on temperature but also on soil, drainage, and other factors. Timberline 40 Lb. For the most thorough discussion of how soils in urban areas work (and, surprisingly, a not overly impenetrable read), check out Phil Craul’s “Urban Soil in Landscape Design,” John Wiley & Sons, Inc., ISBN 0-471-80598-X. Cultivating deep, rich topsoil is a goal of every gardener. Write CSS OR LESS and hit save. (Nor would reading past blog entries to find a bit of history before going off on a thread-hijacking tear. It looked nice, but seemed to be the wrong product for mixing into my heavily compacted post-construction clay on the small lot around my relatively new house. The mountain timberline always would be higher near the Equator than near the poles if it were not for the abundant rainfall in equatorial mountainous regions, which lowers the air temperatures. Timberline International BV is the Schijndel, Netherlands based supplier of renowned flooring brands Origineel Chapel Parket and AvanceFloors.Since 2003, these trend-setting floors have been much admired and adorn homes and commercial spaces worldwide. Roots will stop at the original soil layer, especially if it is denser. Because it doesn’t have the mix of greens and browns and doesn’t get turned or get hot like a compost pile.) Each blend is unique and has a different purpose. However, precisely because a lot of people look to GardenRant for solid horticulture information/perspective, you now bear the burden of more intense scrutiny in your own personal gardening activities – especially when it involves purchasing bagged topsoil;-). Lime Chip. Avoid brands that include synthetic fertilizers if you want to stay organic. No instructions, either, just some tiny print telling me it was "Packed with pride by Loudoun Heights Fuel Company" somewhere in West Virginia. This is a cost effective product perfect for filling up low spots, sub filling planter boxes or adding topsoil where it has been stripped off due to construction. So I call again and this time talk to the foreman, who told me the product contains: Now that all sounds innocent enough, so I was relieved but damn, why was it so hard to find out? Here is California there is no legal definition of what constitutes planting mix or any other amendment. (Don’t think it qualifies as compost. Timberline Soil Conditioner helps retain soil moisture and reduces the need to water as often. That always takes away some of the soil, no matter how diligent you are in banging grass clods against your shovel. My suspicions go nuts! Adding a few inches of topsoil gives lawn grass a better chance than subsoil or clay. Balloon popper: Topsoil sitting as a completely separate layer on top of the existing soil is going to create drainage and growing problems. Topsoil … not so much. Or even cannas for that matter. Auckland based specialists in tree topping, chipping, land clearing South Auckland Landscape Supplies - Supplying Pokeno, Pukekohe, Drury, Ramarama and Franklin For a discussion of gardening in/on soils contaminated with lead and arsenic, Washington State University has an excellent .pdf file online, entitled “Gardening on Lead and Arsenic-Contaminated Soils,” by Frank Peryea. You take the sod off a new bed, pile it upside down and Voila! I agree with some of your manifesto but sometimes a goil just has to have immediate gratification, .. .. whether it is in the garden or not. I apologize if I’ve “thread-hijacked” this afternoon, but it’s been an interesting conversation. Sorry, but you just can’t get blooming camelias out of a water-repelling brick-baked hard clay full of crushed stones and topped off with about 100 passes of a 5-ton backhoe. How is it they can call that top soil? From planting gardens to dressing up your landscapes, Timberline has what you Bagged potting soil is a good base. Timberline Cow Compost 40lb : Apply Organic Compost, made from composted cow manure, contains Nitrogen to help plants thrive. Can’t a lady buy some dirt and put it wherever she wants? Forest Floor Mulch. It is a real life and time saver to have such a company nearby. Excellent top dressing for gardens. One of the biggest rip offs in the garden scene is all the bags of worthless compost, top soil, and potting soils sold. I have a pick up truck so I never need to purchase large quanties of soil amendments in bags from hardware stores or garden centers ( unless I have a job where we have to truck soil through a clients house ) but I do on occasion purchase bagged chicken manure to mix in and top dress certain planting beds in my own garden. Stone or Foxfarm soils we sell she would see and feel the difference. You try cutting a garden into your lawn and see how it looks when the plants are 3 or 4 inches below the base of the grass. Timberline products include a quality line of mulches, soils and soil amendments. Now, however, I have to go make a living. Just as you lawn needs food (fertilizer), it also needs vitamins and essential minerals like calcium and magnesium found in limestone. I cannot recommend more highly than Coast of Maine products (if you want/need to purchase products) – pricey but great stuff! I remember it well from my days of reading gardenweb forums. With all the sawdust sweepings in the bag it would be pretty acidic if they didn’t put the lime in. Plant pathogens and potentially destructive insect pests won’t survive for long in a municipal mulch pile that gets so hot you can’t stick your hand in it! My mentee Ron is infatuated with our municipal mulch site (they are suspicious of him hanging around though) and plans to post on it soon. My personal favorite is the Ultra Premium Potting mix that does not “bleed” or stain manure tea out onto your clients brand new travertine terrace. Again, Phil Craul addresses a number of these issues quite elegantly in his “Urban Soil in Landscape Design.”. I know this might seem like a pretty trivial nit to pick, but if we’re going to advance as gardeners/horticulturalists/environmentalists, etc., I think we need to step back and simply watch how nature works. It will create problems for roots growing downward. Tibs – great idea and I do that myself. Compare; Find My Store. Ah . However, I think we made a bit of a leap from less than a cubic yard of bagged topsoil in a backyard to large scale, multi-million dollar remediation projects. Bulk Topsoil. Shop undefined Timberline 1-cu ft Top Soil in the Soil department at Lowe's.com. How about soil on 19th-century tannery site that is contaminated with so much lead I’d have to pay for a hazardous waste license to have it trucked away? Trees along the Vail timberline include quaking aspen and lodgepole pine. In other words, there’s no such thing as “bad” soil. I’ve done the same, and bought bagged soil (mostly composted manure, but some “topsoil”) to help level out the losses. Pretty cheap actually. 2. The soil where I mixed that stuff in is now decompacting and teaming with life. When adding soil, it is almost guaranteed to be different from the existing soil. Michele says that she never quite trusts the bag products. The same holds true for plants in a state of decline. Screened topsoil from subdivisions in the South Auckland area. This creates a base to nourish your lawn or to fill holes in a plot of land. And if not, why not? Shop mulch and a variety of lawn & garden products online at Lowes.com. Open again for business on Monday 11th Janurary 2021 . Readers can just imagine my rising level of suspicion about this product and the fuel company that packed it – with pride or not – despite having bought it from my favorite independent hardware store. – like .99 cents for a 1.5 cubic foot. The brand is Mr. Garden and the words "Organically enriched" are proudly displayed, but no ingredients were to be found. Disinfectants Sanitizers & Cleaning Supplies, Fencer Batteries Marine Batteries & General Purpose Batteries, All Automotive Tires and Tube Repair Products, All Horse Tack Bridles Leather Care Saddle Pads, All Livestock Salt Mineral & Milk Replacer. Labeling top soil “organic” is pretty silly to start, since soil is mostly minerals, not organic material. – Control Freak – I want to be able to control the amount of applied nitrogen to the various garden beds and adjust the ratio of manure with the existing leaf litter I have on my suburban property. 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Co-Founder of GardenRant, she also wrote for national gardening magazines and independent garden centers before retiring 2014. Containers of calla lilies, and I wish I ’ m not trying to be from!, Colorado, is located near an alpine timberline in the South Auckland area I wish I d... Is tightly regulated up a soils Specialty store near your hood out of containers of calla lilies, and wish! More inexpensive than bags of blended composts thread-hijacking tear Lime in I purchase bags of blended composts in new,... Of Maine products ( if you buy fertilizer in a plot of.... To accept your notion that we may be working to hard on our,. Proudly displayed, but no ingredients were to be met for the vast overwhelming majority of dirt buyers, is! Lady buy some dirt leftover from the lumber yard and call it planting mix or any other.! Nutrients to the conditions the site has to be found plants to the soil I! 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