Workshop Growing media

1
- Workshop - Growing media hobby gardeners 

• Colloque  Tourbe et tourbières 2007 
• Conference  Peat and peatlands 2007 
• Lamoura 8-11 octobre 2007

2
An active constructive workshop

• Producers, environmentalists, scientists,
  distributors
• A large expression of the participants
• A steady rythm of exchanges

3
Sequence of workshop

• Introduction of the participants function, and
  possible gardening hobby!
• General agreement of the contributors proposals
• Introduction of Botanic (a French distributor)

4
Main issues

• Consumers dont know how to use the growing media
  they purchase
• Confusion between soil improvers growing media
• Labels on packages are not read or not understood
  
• Debate about growing media composition according
  with their use

5
Main issues

• Hobby gardeners are not easily satisfied compared
  with professionals, as they want a flexible and
  easy-to-use product
• Most of them dont connect peat and peatlands
• Most of them live in urban areas, the reference
  being the terrace and no longer the garden

6
Need of a training for users

• To differentiate soil improvers and growing media
• Then to refine the demand depending on the use

7
What are current growing media for hobby
gardeners made of ?

• For real growing media, peat remains the
  reference, mixed with bark, various fibers and a
  small amount of compost.
• For soil improvers, many materials are used, such
  as green waste or manure compost

8
What is in fact buying the customer?

• A so-called universal product
• But this product can hardly be both a good
  growing medium and a good soil improver
• It contains peat, which is not required to
  improve the soil qualities

9
Could we make things change?

• For growing media, technical limits of the users
  imply that the rate of peat could hardly be
  downed under 30
• Alternatives must be promoted, for example top
  soils or good-quality green waste compost

10
Conclusion

• Hobby gardeners are a major market (speaking of
  volumes) to develop peat alternatives
• Its less reactive than the professionnal market
• Hobby gardeners seem not to be aware of
  environmental issues linked to the use of growing
  media
• Public awareness campaign would need a lot of
  energy but whose?