What is Cinder? How To Use It & What Are It’s Benefit For Plant?

In This Post, We Will learn All About a Cheap & Very Effective Soil Ingredient, Called As Cinder. We Will See What are It’s Benefits, Side Effects & Correct Usage. So Let’s Begin.

What is Cinder & How It’s made?

Cinder is a naturally Occuring Light Weight, Rocky material black To Grey In Color Having No Smell. Cinder is also called as Lava Rock, pumice Gravels etc. Its Commonly Used In Container Gardening, Mostly To Improve The texture & drainage of Our Soil.

These Irregular Pieces of Lava Rock, have Some Elements, But Generally They Are Considered Neutral for The Soil Fertility. Fortunately, Cinder Is a Non Expiring Material, & Works Best As a Soil amendment.

What Are The Benefits of Cinder For Plants?

There are a Lot Of Benefits Cinder Provides To Our Plants, Like Better Drainage Which Results Into prevention Of So Many Fatal Issues. Most of The Plant Related Problems, From Die back To yellow Leaves, Browning Tips To Curly & Wilting Leaves all Are related To a Bad Soil Draiange At Some Point.

So By Fixing The Drainage, We just Over Came all These Disease. Cinder Also Make up Soil Volume, Its Light Weight Best For Making Light Weight Potting Mixes, Especially For Rooftop Gardens.

One Quality Cinder has Is It’s Arreation, Cinder Prices have Also Of holes Inside Them, Which Keeps The Air Flow & Gaseous Exchange Proper & Balanced. it Doesn’t Expire At all, Just Buy Once & Use Forever.

As Though Cinder Is Neutral, But Some Minute Amounts of Trace Elements are Still Present In It. These Elements are Iron, calcium, Mangnese, Potassium, & Phosphorus. Cinder Overall Makes Up The Soil Health & Texture, Which Ultimately Provides Better Plant Growth, Thicker Leaves, More Root Growth etc.

How To Correctly Use Cinder?

Now lets Know How We Can use Cinder For Our Plants,

Mixing With Soil:

The First & The Simplest Way To use Cinder is By Mixing it With Our Soil Media. While Preparing A Potting Mix, may Be for Succulents or Cacti, Some rare or Special House Plant, You can Add Upto 1 Part of Cinder In 4 Parts of Your Potting Mix.

You can Also Buy a Good Quality Cinder From Here. If You Like You can Also use Cinder In Your vegetables Soil Media, They are Hardy, & can Handle More Moisture In The Soil, Still If You Like You Can Add 10% of Cinder In Their Mixture, to Imrpove Drainage & Arreation Even more.

For Transplanting:

Another Way To Use Cinder Is While Transplanting. While repotting a Plant, You can Add A Small Layer of Cinder At The Base of The Pot, 1 inch Layer is Enough, The EXtra Moisture will gather Below The Cinder, not Affecting The Plant.

After Cinder Add Soil, & Plant Anything In It. This Way is Great to reduce The Chances of Over Watering For Plants Like Cacti & Succulents, Some Rare House Plants.

For Mulching Plants:

One Way To use Cinder Is By Mulching, You can Use It as a Mulching Material, Add It Over The Soil Surface, a Half to one Inch Layer Is Enough, This Will Keep The Soil Nutrients Intact, Keep Moisture Available In Dry Conditions, keep Soil Microbes Alive & Thriving.

This all Results Into Better Plant Growth, Mulching is Great For moisture Loving Plants, Not For cacti & Succulents, Learn In depth About The benefits Of Mulching Plants From Here.

Can We use It For any Plants?

Following a Correct Way, You can use Cinder For any Plant, It’s Mainly For Soil enhancing, & a Better Soil is Good For all Plants. Mostly, It’s Used For Cacti & Succulents, & Some Sensitive House Plants That Hates Over Watering.

It’s Side Effects?

There are also Some Side Effects of Using Cinder For Plants.

• The Most Important Thing To Understand is That Cinder has Almost No Nutrients, If You are Planing To use It Alone, That Wont work. It’s a Soil Conditioner Not a Complete Soil Media. You have To add Some compost, & Soil In it To make It Good Enough.
• One Thing Is it’s Ph, A Good Quality Cinder is Neutral In Ph, But Some Areas Have An Acidic Kind of Cinder, So Better Way Is To Use With Moderation, Don’t Use Too Much, 10-20% is Enough For A Soil media.
• Cinder also have Some Dust, That Is Very Harmful For Our inhaling, & skin Contact. Better To Use a Facemask & Gloves While Handling It Regularly.
• Some Poor Quality Cinder brands are Also Available In The Market, They have Heavy Metals & Salts, That Can Damage Our Soil Working, Better To Buy From a Good Trusted Source, One is also Added Here.

So it’s all About Cinder Benefits & Uses For Plants, Here is a Guide On a Homemade Seed Starter, & Here is a List On Some Other Kinds of Soil Amendments, if You Like To Follow.