Does anyone have information on the differences in Canadian type sphagnum peat moss vs Florida Peat, does it have the same water retention levels? same acidity levels etc?
I googled it out of curiousity, looks like Florida peat is from Reed sedge, not sphagnum. Seems that it can be acidic, but not nearly as much as sphagnum.
People are using coconut coir as an alternative
If you have a big box store nearby, standard bales of peat moss should cost around 13 bucks. This is the first time I’d heard of anyone considering the stuff from FL but I can definitely see that use case. I imagine the FL stuff takes substantially longer to grow back.
As @chriso mentioned coco coir is a good alternative but may have higher salinity depending on the quality of the product and it also doesn’t add acidity (which is desired for some applications). It can be washed to remove salts.