It seems that hair can be used a fertilizer. I'm wondering if anyone reading this has tried it, and how long it takes for the hair to break down enough to become useful to a plant. Is it necessary to compost the hair, or can it just be added in the potting mix? Would short clippings (a few mm) be more effective?
I believe one of the garden shows from HGTV had a blip on using human hair for fertilizer and weed control. This was being tested and one needed to find natural hairs so I believe they were importing the hair in from Japan where no coloring is being done. According to the show they had good results. I have tested dog hair and I wasn't happy with what I say, so it now goes to the composter. I would rather keep the hair on my head and not on some shop floor or put in a pot. Wishing you the best if you try this.
What happened with the dog hair? Was it longhair? Was it in the pot for a long time? Weed control, you say?
Wew did this last year on one of our older Brugmansias but I'm afraid the plant die due to the frost and when we cleaned the pot the dog hair was still sitting there. In early spring our part Yorkie gets a spring cut and the hair is fairly long for a dog. It did great for weed control but beings we had a late freeze it did the Brugmansia in as it had been outside when it was nice and being drug back and forth so many times will do some of them in. I did note it was growing faster than the others in this area. I wouldn't call this a true testing of this. I sure hope someone else will try this out. If you do, one thing is do not use color treated hair, I believe the words were virgin healthy hair.
I added human hair from home hair cutting and found that it is very resistant to decomposition. Since all our compost is screened throug a 1/2" hardware cloth, it was clear that hair passed through a 1-1/2 year composting period without any noticeable decomposition.
Wasn't this one of Jerry Baker's suggestions along with soft drinks and other bizzare sources of plant nutrients? Hair is a protein, called keratin. Proteins contain about 15% nitrogen. Keratin also contains some sulfur. However, protein nitrogen and sulfur is slowly available. Microbes must break down the protein before they are available for plant uptake. Keratin is not easily decomposed so is a slow release fertilizer. Hmmm? maybe I'l try a faster source. Bob
A friend of mine is a hair dresser, and said she used human hair in her plant pot (a spider plant) and she said it was more mess than it was worth!
Unless one was a barber, or hair dresser, with availability to extrodary amounts of hair, the benefits received from hair would certainly not be worth ones time and energy. Even if one were a barber, it would still not be worth ones time. - Millet (1,449)
Remember this, archaeologists have discovered human hair to be thousands of years old, intact! Some frozen, others in caves throughout dig sites in Canada... try snipping yur hair into tiny sections before you mulch or compost it.... I recommend a buzz cut every two weeks! lol I use canine hair to temp. rid vermin or deer... so far so good! No buzz cut required!
