Coco Coir & Coco Peat

What coco coir, coco peat and coco chips actually are

The fibre left in a coconut husk, once processed, is coco coir — a growing medium. The fine, dark fraction of that same husk is coco peat; GreenPlanet's listing treats the two names as one material. Coco chips are the coarse cut, chosen for air rather than water. Every product on this page is one of those three grades, or those grades blended with perlite.

Water-holding is what you actually feel. Straight coir keeps the most moisture. A 70/30 coco-perlite mix lets water through faster. GreenPlanet says its 60/40 chip blend still drains quicker than 100% coco, yet holds more than a 70/30. Cyco skips perlite altogether: Coco Bitz puts chunk coir in the mix so the aggregate cannot migrate to the top of the pot.

Washed, buffered and RHP — what the bag is telling you

How the bag behaves comes down to two steps. Washing takes the husk's salts out. Canna says Coco Professional Plus is washed in fresh water so no salts are present; Bio Diesel double-washes its coco and makes it inland in a salt-free environment; the LGD 4kg brick is quoted below 0.5mS/cm EC out of the pack. Buffering loads calcium and magnesium onto the fibre first. Hy-Gen calls that conditioning the coco peat and eliminating nuisance chemicals such as sodium. Canna says the same step lets it pre-programme the medium to a set age, so each bag behaves the same.

RHP is the Dutch standard for horticultural substrates. Most of what we sell here carries it — Canna, Cyco, GreenPlanet, Way to Grow, Eazy Plug and the Grow Kings blends. Canna notes the inspection looks at sourcing and processing, not only the finished bag. Bio Diesel does not use RHP; it uses its KO Guarantee scheme instead.

Compressed blocks and bricks, or ready-to-use bags

Dry compressed coco is the cheap way to buy volume, because it expands once you wet it. Hy-Gen's 650g brick takes 3–4L of water and swells to about 10L in roughly 30 minutes. The Way to Grow 5kg block takes up to 20L and opens out to 60L; Hy-Gen quotes 20–30L from a 5kg block of its own. Break the clumps up and mix to an even texture before you plant.

A bag skips the hydration step. Canna, Cyco, GreenPlanet and Hy-Gen 50L and 53L bags go straight into pots, and GreenPlanet says its chip bag comes out at low EC. The 10L Grow Kings bags are sized for a few pots, not a whole room.

How to choose coco coir

1. Bag or block. A block lies flat and costs less per litre, yet you still need a tub, water and about half an hour. A bag is ready the moment you open it.
2. Pick your air-to-water balance. Straight coir holds the most water. A 70/30 coco-perlite blend drains faster. A coco-chip blend puts the most air of the three around the roots.
3. Check it says washed and buffered. Unbuffered coir will pull calcium and magnesium out of the feed. Unwashed coir still carries salt. Every sellable bag here states one of those, or both.
4. Buy the volume, not the weight. Compressed lines are priced on dry weight and sold on what they make: 650g becomes about 10L, 4kg about 56L, 5kg about 60L.
5. Propagate in a plug, not in a bag. Use coco propagation plugs or Eazy Plug trays for cuttings — they ship with pH and EC already set, so the cutting is not sitting in full-strength medium.

Reusing coco

Two suppliers put a reuse claim on their own listings. Canna says Coco Professional Plus can be used several times and then works as a potting-mix improver. Way to Grow says its Pro Coco block can be reused for up to four years. The structure will compact a little each cycle.

Mixing your own? The perlite range is the aggregate, propagation mediums covers plugs and trays, and the full grow mediums range sits beside this page. Feeding coco is a different subject with its own chemistry — that lives on the coco nutrients page.