Yes, the nekodama i have and am using quite a lot is tescos low dust lightweight cat litter. Thank you for sharing as alain said . I think thee is another tescos nekodama which is calcium silicate so like pumice and perlite which i think would make a nice mix with somehing else. The reason i would like a pine is because i aim for a windswept style and i like dramatic scenes and would also like the experience. I will post the progression on another thread. As i and auk agreed on, if you stick a nice picture of a bonsai tree on the packaging and maybe clled the cat litter "baked clay" then many enthusiasts would go for it. That of course making sur that the cat litter can be used as a soil. I know that most cat litter is just raw unbaked moler clay. Thank you again orlando .

Orlando wrote:

Batch 3:
I cut of the taproot complete and put it in a mix of 70/30 cat litter and soil from a established pine tree.
For me the best result batch 3.batch 1 i lost 20%
Cheers

Auk wrote:

Very interesting! I agree it must be the soil you used and the mycorrhizae in it that caused the big difference.
Also interesting that this proofs that apparently cat litter works just fine...

Hi... Well I think I´ll add up myself to this "Nekodama" current Yesterday I went to the the Supermarket and got myself a bag of 5kg of cat litter. Its composition, as you will see in the second picture, ranges from a 60% sepiolite clay (a phyllosilicate [Mg4Si6O15(OH)2·6H2O]), a 30% dolomite (a mineral composed by calcium carbonate and magnesium [CaMg(CO3)2]) and a 10% of "other minerals" (that is the only thing that has me worried). Anyways, I think I´ll experience a bit with it and I will compare it, when the time comes, with other trees´progress planted in a different substrate and if something goes wrong, well I would have only lost 1.40 euros and perhaps a plant. Also, this cat litter comes with perfume (it is the only one I´ve found so far), but after reading several places I understand it will wash away after some watering and that this scent will no cause any damage to my trees.

Oh, one more thing... Curious thing is that in one of the bag´s side, the manufacturer also depicts a picture of a plant in a pot... So, that gives me some more insurance margin

Alain

Oh, I forgot to translate the second picture lines... This is what it says:

Catlitter Absorbing Capability: 87%, Tolerance: +/- 10%
(NF V 19-002 Method)

Bulk Density: 770 g/L, Tolerance: +/- 10%
(NF T 73-405 Method)

pH: 8.3, Tolerance: +/- 0.5%
(NF T 30-035 Method)

Granulometry: Greater that 4.76mm <6%, between 0.5 and 4.76mm > 91%, lower than 0.5mm <3%

Composition:

Sepiolite Clay: 60%
Dolomite: 30%
Other Minerals: 10%

alainleon1983 wrote:

Oh, one more thing... Curious thing is that in one of the bag´s side, the manufacturer also depicts a picture of a plant in a pot... So, that gives me some more insurance margin

You'll have noticed the picture of a car too - this clay is apparently also used to clean up spilt oil.
Oil Dri is sold as an absorbent clay product - www.oildri.net/.
It is also used for bonsai, en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Bonsai/Bonsai_soil

Essentially it's all just baked clay...