Melcourt Horticultural Potting Grit, 20kg

Am now buying grit to put round and under my pot plants ...... keeps the wet soil off the leaves and they don't rot .....

Very good, just what I required to allow better drainage in compost.

Ordered 2 x 20Kg bags which arrived quickly (poor postie did a good job carrying them up the garden steps). Admittedly I feel the grit is too fine for effective drainage, but I bought this specifically for top dressing my potted bulbs as the colour is suited to myself and much better at keeping slugs and snails at bay, even my cats don't like treading on it, so a win win for me. I'll certainly be back for more when I'm running low.

I found the product perfect for the job because it adds drainage when potting my plants.

I am using this a lot in my garden

Was not impressed with this product at all. Most of Melcourt's products are very good, but this arrived very, very wet, and seems to contain quite a bit of contamination/dirt. It is also very fine grained. I know a question was asked about this, and one answer said it was 2 - 3 mm particle size, but I don't find that to be the case with the one I received. I also checked Melcourt's website before buying, where is also said this was 2 - 3 mm particle size. But I sifted some of this, and the majority is smaller than 2 mm, while a small percentage is also larger than 4 mm. I've bought sharp sand that had larger average particle size than this. I suppose it depends on your purpose, but for my purposes it was useless, as far too small (and wet). I wanted something over 2 mm, but not too large, like Westland grit, and not so round. I was prepared to only be able to use about 1/3rd of this and to have to sift it, but it arrived so wet, I couldn't really have sifted large quantities until I'd spent a long time drying it out. And even if I'd wanted to go to this trouble, I would've only ended up with a very small amount that was larger than 2 mm. I would say this is far closer to 1 - 2 mm particle size myself. On the upside, this is a nice, silver colour, unusual for grit, and is actually proper grit, and not pea gravel, as is often sold as horticultural grit. However, cannot imagine that this small particle size would actually provide much in the way of drainage - although not sure I believe adding sand provides drainage anyway - apparently, this is a hotly contested subject amongst gardeners. I would say it provides some drainage in open ground, with heavy clay soils, if used in conjunction with more long-term remedies, like increasing organic matter content, but definitely does nothing to increase drainage in pots if you're using a growing medium with powder like consistency, as most potting composts are. If you're using something with a larger particle size (bark, moler, pumice etc), then using grit does reduce water retention of the medium if it's the same average particle size as the rest of the medium, which is why I wanted it, plus sharply shaped grit helps with root branching, which is why I didn't want the usual pea gravel stuff, which was also too large. Have found a good alternative: growers/hen grit from Jondo, but not the mixed grit, the flint grit, as the mixed grit has oyster shell added. That is clean, virtually dust-free, graded grit, with growers grit being about 1 - 3 mm (majority 2 - 3 mm) and hen grit being about 3 - 5 mm. Will be using that from now on, requires no sifting, as already evenly graded and very clean and dust free.. It's slightly more expensive than this, but well worth it for my purposes, as can use it all with no prep..

Good product for my garden potting mix.

Very small pieces 2mm?, means a fine gritty compost can be made up for herb propagation, etc. Not cheap! at £21 a bag but a very good product that does what it says on the tin. It also lasts a lot longer than the larger grit available.