Sta-Green brand potting mix (plus fertilizer) is marketed as an all-purpose mix excellent for indoor and outdoor container plants.
“This potting soil is regionally formulated from materials (derived from one or more of the following: reed-sedge peat, recycled forest products and/or composted rice hulls), sphagnum peat moss, horticulture perlite, ground dolomitic limestone (pH adjuster) and a wetting agent,” states the package's ingredients label.
The product's composition can vary from region to region, notes the company, Grant County Mulch Inc., of Petersburg, W.Va., on its 64 dry quart bag. Nowhere on the packaging, however, does it list another ingredient — rocks. And I'm not talking about small rocks or pebbles; I'm talking about rocks the size of lemons and limes — and not just one or two — in bags recently purchased at my local big-box garden center.
No wonder these bags were so heavy.
Gardening is labor intensive enough without having to screen your potting mix for rocks that shouldn't be there in the first place. And the friendly customer service representative agreed. “Julie,” based at a call center in Greensboro, N.C., quipped that rocks are the last thing that gardeners want to deal with, cheerfully took my information for further investigation and referred me back to the point of purchase, Lowe's, to seek a resolution.
Soon I'll be heading there — empty Sta-Green bags in one hand, a bag of rocks in another — seeking a refund and, of course, another brand of potting mix.
— Colin McNickle
