Source for Red Lava Rock

What is the most economical source for a large bag of small red lava rock, to be used as a replacement for pumice in a succulent soil mixture? I also want to use the red lava rock as a mulch.

Reply to
W
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the stuff floats away easily, so not the best mulch if you get heavy rains, winds or floods.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

Are you confusing lava rock with perlite? Perlite definitely floats. Volcanic aggregates (i.e., either white pumice or red lava rock) sink in water.

I did a quick test with 10 smallish red lava rocks in a bucket of water, and they all 10 sank.

Reply to
W

Lava rocks are not pumice. Pumice floats. Having tossed a few hundred pumice pieces into Crater Lake, I can attest to this. You might also look at

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Reply to
Chris

I have 40 pounds of Drystall as well as white pumice bought from a nursery. When I put it into a bowl of water it sinks. If you look at Drystall and pumice under microscope, they are identical.

Your data point on Crater Lake is interesting, and I don't know why your pumice behaves differently than mine. If I read the pumice raft idea correctly, this just means that sometimes a large piece of pumice traps a large air pocket internally.

Perlite, however, is a significant floater.

Sorry for top posting but I could not get my reader to quote your post correctly.

Reply to
W

nope, no confusion at all. perlite is air expanded silicon. pumice can float and the color varies just as the lava rocks can vary, but the point in common to all of these as marketed is that they do tend to have air holes throughout.

they might sink, but they are lighter than a normal rock and they move much easier by water and wind.

i've used some as mulch here and they wander around. you need a pretty good border to keep them in place.

songbird

Reply to
songbird

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