As the title suggests, this topic is about cat litter.This cat litter is from aldis and is made from natural clay. As it is clumping, it may be best to use it as part of a mixture (by my inference). I would not advise to use it as i have not tested it yet (has anyone?). I know many will object to using cat litter, but answer this, if it was titled as a soil (with the same ingredients as tescos lightweight) would you not get it? I am just wondering what your ideas on this may be. i will test it in the next spring time, any thoughts welcome. It is only £1.79 for 10kg!!

Thank you!! I think i may be the first to test this litter brand (if i do)

Clumping- that sounds very iffy, surely the very fact that it clumps into a solid mass is exactly the reason not to use it.I am not against cat litter as I use Tesco finest dust free with about 20% pine bark and the trees seem to like it.
The only thing is that I hate myself for going into Tesco, against all my beliefs,one firm controlling so much of the market for manufacturers,growers and customers is too much.But it seems they are victims of their own success now

yeah. clumping does sound iffy. but what if you use it with another medium, the granules would not touch each other so only a small amount (10-20%) may "clump" (just a theory). i will test it with a privet and see how goes next spring or summer. thanks for the comment!! p.s. the price of the cat litter at tescos may go up due to recent profit loss .

Do not use clumping cat litter. It does not work. It falls apart after the first watering clogging up your soil.

THere are many articers on cat litter, including which type to use in the UK, e.g. on bonsai4me.

cool. that sums that up i guess. but i think i will still try it (my curiosity overruns me ). thank you

If you don't want to kill your trees don't use it

Thank you for your concern and advice, but i did not explain myself properly, i have a worthless privet along with several others, and am going to try it with the litter, obviously you will be most likely right. I just can't stop myself sometimes for trying it for myself. The plus side is that i have only got £1.79 to loose.

bob wrote:

Thank you for your concern and advice, but i did not explain myself properly, i have a worthless privet along with several others, and am going to try it with the litter, obviously you will be most likely right. I just can't stop myself sometimes for trying it for myself. The plus side is that i have only got £1.79 to loose.

He is not most likely right, he is right. You need the non-clumping type. The clumping type retains water, forms clumps, and falls apart. You want the well-draining, non-clumping type.

I use fired, danish clay pellets. I have bought three bags, one of them I put in my plastic soil container (that I use when I'm repotting), to rinse out the dust (which probably wasn't really necessary). I have left that container outside, without the lid on, so it has been under water for a few months now. They are still intact. I've used it for some of my trees, I'll certainly use it for other trees that need to be repotted next year.

It doesn't look bad at all:

bob wrote:

Thank you for your concern and advice, but i did not explain myself properly, i have a worthless privet along with several others, and am going to try it with the litter, obviously you will be most likely right. I just can't stop myself sometimes for trying it for myself. The plus side is that i have only got £1.79 to loose.

Great.. Bonsai is also about respect for nature. Also a 'worthless' privet deserves respect and there is no reason to go about treating it in a way that is known to be bad for it's health.

Thank you. I guess i wont try it then. The colour of that danish clay looks fantastic. I have to say.

Respect for nature comes in many ways. As i cannot plant he privet outside, because i do not have a garden, it remains inside, i have to much to handle, no one wants it (part of my family etc.) so the only other way is to stick it in the allotments compost heap. So either way, whatever people do they are respecting nature a bit, in different ways, little ways. What respect do weeds get.