woodchips for drainage = bad?

[4Frnt]

soil/organic compost
250watt mh
added foxfarm neuts then stopped after yellowing got worse
haven't watered in like 4 days now, some moisture deep down (3+ inches)

im dumb and put like 3 inches of clean woodchips from a playground in the bottom of my pot, then filled the rest with soil/compost. I'm worried that this is actually preventing drainage and maybe rotting or something. Leaves are starting to yellow, droop too.

I tested the PH with one of the kits but it doesn't really help me much.


My plant is 22 days old now

heres a shitty cell phone pic



can anyone give me any insight on this? Is it worth trying to transplant to some fresh potting soil or is this more of a risk?

[nitrobud]

I don't think it should be too much of a problem on the bottom as you wont have water running through the chips and then the soil.

I would possibly add some peatmoss or at least more vermiculite to that mix though to help with drainage if it seems like it packs down too easy. Because after a bunch of waterings, the soil will choke the roots if it gets too packed.

Have you tried grabbing the soil with you hand and seeing if it compacts or falls apart?

[BKKG]

The yellowing looks like a calcium deficiency to me, so getting a micronutrient solution could help with that.

How much of the nutes were you adding, and how often, and at what concentration?

I wouldn't use the wood chips for the following reasons:
1. They'll mess with your drainage, because they'll absorb water and with all the soil on top they won't be able to evaporate it. This will make the moisture level in your soil harder to determine and maintain.
2. They came from outside, and a public outside place at that! You should never bring something from outside into contact with your indoor plants, because you don't know what kind of parasites you might have dragged in with them.

The drooping of the leaves looks like plain old overwatering to me, although if you haven't watered in 4 days I can't be as confident in that as I would normally be.

I would recommend waiting another day or so to see if the leaves perk up at all, and if they still haven't I would transplant to fresh soil but NOT potting soil (that's got nutrients in it and has screwed up a lot of plants in the past.). If you transplant, move into soil without woodchips and try a flush of the rootball. The plant does look fairly stressed, but since it's not doing well at the moment you may not have a whole lot to lose.

[luckyleaf2]

Try and stay away from wood chips in your medium.

Roots cant penetrate wood chips.