Hi I'm new to this and I was in a small garden shop near my house to see if they had anything I could use.
I'm Irish but I live in Poland and my Polish isn't great. I spoke to the owner (but in very broken Polish) and asked him about "very small stones for Bonsai" in Polish. He had no Akadama but he showed me 2 bags of other stuff.
One was small white stones about 5-7mm called agroperlite which is some kind of volcanic rock.
The second was some kind of ceramic, brown, very porous stones about 10mm in size.
Does anyone know of these? can they be used as a substrate?
I'm finding it difficult finding the right materials here when I need a translator for very specific things haha.

agroperlite is agricultural perlite (I think) which is often used for seedlings. It can be used in bonsai soils, but is more recently being taken over by cheaper alternatives. If you plan on using perlite as an ingredient, be careful to ensure that either the other ingredients are virtually non-absorbent, or that the perlite forms no more than 20% of the total mix, as it is very absorbent. It is also very unstable (breaks up easily) so it may not be very preferable.

As for the other thing... it may be moler clay? Moler clay is what I use as a 'soil' as it's free draining, absorbent and has sharp edges. If you plan on using it, make sure that it IS in fact moler clay, otherwise there could be a lot of fatalities.

I love links, so:
www.colinlewisbonsai.com/Reading/soils2.html

Ed

That's great, thanks for that Ed.
What I need to do is write the names for everything down and the most important information, translate it into Polish, then I can go around to garden centres armed with the proper information.

Akadama = Akadama
Pumice = Pumeks
Turface = Praży montmorylonit gliny
Perlite = Perłowiec
Vermiculite = Wermikulit
Grit = Piasek

My rudimentary Polish may not be entirely correct, but it's worth a try
Ed

Haha thanks, most of those look correct, but piasek actually means sand and gliny means clay.

oh, Praży montmorylonit gliny = Calcined montmorillonite clay, does that sound right? That's not the exact same as Turface

yep, calcined montmorillonite clay is the scientific name (I actually think that turface is more like a brand name).
Supposedly it's not too good for bonsai, and akadama and pumice are preferred, but everyone has different experiences with different substrates.

Ed

keramzyt ogrodniczy or "expanded garden clay", what do you think?

Darsh wrote:

keramzyt ogrodniczy or "expanded garden clay", what do you think?

That's 8-16 mm? I'd say that's far too course. You'll have to crush and sift it.

It's pretty big but I don't have too many options here.
It looks like the only things I can get my hands on here are perlite, this expanded clay and peat moss. Will that be good enough as a general mix?

A lot of people in poland are doing bonsaiy stuff. I think you should be able to find some people that can tell what is available, and where. I know one guy from poland now making a push fot the international stage would behappy to help you, bonsaieuropa.wordpress.com/2014/05/20/de...rom-katowice-poland/

If you have a hard time locating him, lrt me know and I can pop him a message.