Home
Rewilding with Wild Bosky - Articles, News & Events
Beneflore™ Super Soil: How to Rewild Your Soil
Beneflore™ Super Soil: How to Rewild Your Soil
Open a fresh bag of Beneflore™ and the first thing we hope you notice is that it looks, feels and smells like rich living earth.
That is deliberate.
Beneflore isn’t a conventional fertiliser and it isn’t intended to turn Western Australian sand into rich vegetable-garden loam.
It is a concentrated planting-hole amendment designed around a different idea:
when we put native plants back into a disturbed landscape, we should also begin rebuilding the living soil beneath them.
That is what we mean by:
Rewild your soil.
Rewilding is more than revegetation
Planting locally appropriate native species is an important part of restoring a landscape.
But an intact ecosystem is much more than the plants we can see.
Above ground there are insects, birds and other animals using plants for food, shelter and reproduction.
Below ground there is another extraordinary ecosystem made up of bacteria, fungi, microscopic organisms, roots and invertebrates.
And healthy soil doesn’t contain only the organisms alive at this particular moment.
It contains the accumulated remnants of life that came before them.
Decaying roots and leaves.
Humus.
Carbon.
Worm castings.
Insect frass and fragments of exoskeleton.
Microbial residues.
All of this material is continually processed, consumed and recycled into another generation of life.
Where land has been cleared and repeatedly disturbed, we can lose both the living community and much of that accumulated biological inheritance.
Beneflore cannot recreate an untouched ecosystem in a bag.
But it can help return some of the ingredients, organisms and conditions that a functioning landscape would ordinarily have been building for itself.
It is one small way of beginning to make good what has been stripped away.
What’s inside Beneflore?
Beneflore is made in small batches from deliberately selected ingredients.
The exact formulation is ours, but we’re proud of what goes into it.
Premium mature composts
Compost forms the heart of Beneflore.
Good mature compost contains transformed plant material, stable organic matter, humus, nutrients and a diverse microbial community.
Rather than simply feeding the plant with soluble fertiliser, compost provides organic matter from which a functioning soil system can continue cycling nutrients.
Hydrophil™ — biochar, WA spongolite and kaolin clay
Beneflore contains our concentrated Hydrophil™ soil matrix.
Hydrophil combines porous biochar, Western Australian spongolite and kaolin clay to help the root zone retain water and nutrients while creating long-lasting physical habitat for soil organisms.
Biochar provides persistent porous carbon.
Spongolite provides porous mineral structure and silica.
Kaolin adds the fine mineral surfaces largely absent from many sandy WA soils.
Beneflore therefore combines a living organic component with a persistent mineral-and-carbon framework.
Worm castings
Worm castings are organic matter that has already passed through one of nature’s great soil-processing systems.
They contribute biologically transformed organic matter, microorganisms and fine humus-rich material.
They are also part of the broader story of healthy soil: life consuming, transforming and returning biological material back into the system.
Black soldier fly frass
Our insect frass brings another pathway from the natural decomposer cycle into Beneflore.
It contains the castings and biological remnants associated with black soldier fly larvae, including chitinous material from insect bodies and exoskeletons.
That matters to us for more than simply its nutrient value.
In functioning ecosystems, insects are not separate from soil formation. They consume biological material and eventually return their own residues to the system.
Frass helps bring some of that missing complexity back.
Kelp meal
Kelp contributes complex naturally derived organic compounds and trace constituents.
We use it in modest amounts as part of the diverse food supply available to the living community within Beneflore, rather than as a heavy fertiliser.
Beneficial microbes and mycorrhizal fungi
Beneflore contains additional beneficial bacteria and fungi, including mycorrhizal propagules.
Mycorrhizal fungi form relationships with living roots, extending the effective reach of the root system into surrounding soil.
Not every organism placed in a bag will necessarily establish around every plant. Soil biology is far more complicated than that.
Our aim is to provide diversity, habitat and food, then allow the developing root system and local environment to determine what flourishes.
Gentle nutrition — not a high-powered fertiliser
Beneflore contains nutrients because compost, worm castings, insect frass, kelp and living biological materials naturally contain nutrients.
But we have deliberately avoided turning Beneflore into a heavily fertilised supersoil.
Many Western Australian native plants evolved in relatively nutrient-poor environments, and excessive fertiliser—particularly phosphorus—can be harmful to some species.
Our philosophy is:
Feed the soil first. Feed the plant later, if it needs it.
Beneflore is intended to support strong establishment through better soil function, organic matter, microbial activity and gentle background nutrition.
You do not need to add fertiliser to the planting hole simply because you are using Beneflore.
Later, once the plant is establishing and actively growing, additional native-suitable nutrition may be beneficial depending on the species and soil.
At Wild Bosky we commonly use products such as Neutrog Bush Tucker and Neutrog Seamungus, both of which we sell. These can be used later as gentle supplementary feeds rather than being loaded into the planting hole from day one.
How to use Beneflore
Beneflore is a planting-hole amendment.
You do not need to spread it by the square metre or replace all the soil around your plant.
Instead, concentrate it where your new roots will begin growing.
Our starting recommendation is:
Mix approximately 1 part Beneflore with 2–3 parts of the existing soil used to backfill the planting hole.
The exact quantity depends on the size of the plant and how much loose soil is actually required around its root ball.
For small forestry-tube plants, this may only be a relatively small handful or scoop of Beneflore.
For larger plants, use proportionally more.
The important principles are:
- dig an appropriately sized planting hole;
- retain the existing soil;
- mix Beneflore thoroughly through the loose backfill soil;
- do not put a concentrated layer of Beneflore directly underneath the root ball;
- position the plant at the correct depth;
- gently firm the amended soil around it;
- water thoroughly.
We are continuing to refine our exact scoop recommendations through real planting trials. If your bag includes a current dose guide, follow that guide.
Watering still matters
Beneflore creates a better environment for a young root system, but it cannot substitute for establishment watering.
This is particularly important with nursery-grown natives.
The root ball initially occupies only a small volume of soil. Until roots begin growing well beyond it, the plant can dry surprisingly quickly even when the surrounding landscape looks moist.
When planting:
Water deeply immediately after planting.
Make sure the original root ball itself becomes wet, not just the soil around it.
Continue checking the plant regularly through its establishment period.
There is no universal watering schedule because conditions vary enormously with season, species, soil, wind, temperature and exposure.
Aim for thorough watering followed by appropriate drying rather than permanently saturated soil.
As the root system expands, gradually move toward deeper and less frequent watering appropriate to the plant.
Beneflore and Hydrophil can help make that water go further.
They cannot replace the gardener during establishment.
Beneflore is alive
Unlike a bag of mineral amendment, Beneflore contains moist organic material and living biology.
That is one of the things we value about it.
It also means Beneflore should be treated more like a fresh biological product than an indefinitely shelf-stable fertiliser.
We manufacture it in relatively small batches and recommend:
- store it somewhere cool and shaded;
- keep the bag closed when not in use;
- avoid leaving it in a hot car or direct sun;
- use it within the best-before period printed on the pack;
- once opened, use it reasonably promptly.
A fresh bag should smell pleasantly earthy—like good compost, humus or forest-floor soil.
If a product ever develops a strongly sour, rotten, ammonia-like or putrid smell, we would not recommend using it around a valuable plant.
What is Hydrophil™?
You don’t need Hydrophil separately in order to use Beneflore—Beneflore already contains it.
But the two products serve somewhat different purposes.
Hydrophil™ is our highly concentrated planting-hole amendment built around biochar, WA spongolite and kaolin clay. It focuses principally on water movement, water and nutrient retention, and durable microbial habitat.
Beneflore™ takes those physical foundations and surrounds them with mature compost, worm castings, insect frass, kelp and living biology.
So if you want a tiny, highly concentrated amendment with excellent storage and very low application rates, Hydrophil may be all you need.
If the soil is badly depleted and you want to introduce organic matter and living-soil complexity as well, Beneflore is the fuller treatment.
Some gardeners may choose to use Hydrophil alone in relatively intact soil and reserve Beneflore for the hardest, most biologically depleted planting sites.
Both products come from the same Wild Bosky idea:
a native plant should not simply survive the planting hole. It should begin rebuilding a living landscape around itself.
Above ground, we plant habitat.
Below ground, we begin restoring the soil that makes habitat possible.
Beneflore™ Super Soil — Rewild your soil.
Share
