Leca

LECA

Price range: £157.00 through £479.00 inc. VAT

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LECA delivers lightweight and highly effective drainage for all your gardening needs. These 4-10mm porous expanded clay pellets create the ideal balance of aeration and moisture retention for strong, healthy roots.

Perfect for:

  • drainage layers in pots, containers and raised beds
  • mixing into borders and heavy garden soils
  • hydroponics and indoor plant systems
  • top mulching to conserve water and reduce weeds
  • bases for water features and planters

Durable, reusable and pH neutral, LECA is a clean low-maintenance alternative to traditional materials. Perfect for transforming your outdoor space into a thriving, easy-care garden.

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Soil & Compost Calculator

7.5cm for a surface mulch. About 5cm for compost spread as a feed. For a raised bed, use the depth of the bed.

Soil and compost settle once laid and watered in.

Durable 4-10mm Lightweight Expanded Clay pellets for hydroponics, drainage and heavy clay soil improvement.

Size

4-10mm
Quantity

Micro Pack (5 x 70L), Mini Pack (10 x 70L), Small Pack (15 x 70L), Convenience Pack (20 x 70L), Midi Pack (30 x 70L), 1 x Builders Bag (approx. 700L), 1 x Bulk Bag (approx. 1000L), 1 x XL Bag (approx. 1200L), Value Pack (40 x 70L)

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Specifications, Inspirational Ideas & DIY Guides

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Why Professionals & Homeowners Choose, Applications, DIY Guides & Inspirational Ideas, Maintenance, Purchasing Tips, FAQs, Related Products

Overview

I get asked to make heavy planters lighter more often than almost anything else on a roof terrace, and LECA is nearly always the answer. It is clay, pelletised and fired until it puffs up the way popcorn does in a pan. Ours is graded 4-10mm, a warm red-brown that darkens a shade when wet, and it weighs roughly a quarter of what the same volume of gravel weighs. If you are filling deep containers, opening up a heavy border, or growing houseplants in water instead of compost, it earns the money. Here is why.

Why Professionals & Homeowners Choose LECA

LECA keeps turning up on my jobs for five reasons, and loses out for one.

  • A 1,000 litre bag weighs around 350kg against roughly 1.5 tonnes for the same volume of gravel, which is what makes a planted scheme possible on a balcony, a roof terrace or over a garage slab.
  • Every pellet holds water in its pores and hands it back slowly, so a container swings far less between soaked and bone dry than one filled with compost alone.
  • Fired clay is inert and frost resistant, so unlike bark, compost or coir it does not break down, sour or need replacing.
  • Being close to pH neutral, it will not push a border acid or alkaline.
  • Tip it out, rinse it, and it goes straight back to work, which is why it costs less over ten years than the per-litre price suggests.
  • The reason it sometimes loses out is cost. On an open border at ground level, where nobody cares what the soil weighs, horticultural grit does the same job for less.

LECA Applications

LECA suits anything grown in a container where weight and drainage both matter, and it is the standard medium for semi-hydroponics: Swiss cheese plant (Monstera deliciosa), devil's ivy (Epipremnum aureum) and moth orchids (Phalaenopsis) all take to it. Outdoors it goes under planting that hates sitting wet, so lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), houseleeks (Sempervivum tectorum) and biting stonecrop (Sedum acre) do well over a free-draining base of it. What it is not is a surface. Keep it off paths and drives, and off the bottom of a pond, because it is far too light to hold anything down under water.

  • A 100mm drainage layer in the base of deep planters and raised beds, with filter fabric over it so the compost cannot wash into the gaps.
  • Bulking out a tall planter, so you buy less compost and the finished weight drops.
  • Mixed into a heavy clay border alongside compost, 4 to 6cm worked into the top 15 to 20cm. Never on its own, or the clay sets harder than it started.
  • Green roofs and roof terraces, as the drainage layer and blended into the growing medium above it, which is exactly what our lightweight roof garden soil is for.
  • Semi-hydro growing indoors, with the reservoir filling roughly the bottom third of the pot and the roots above the waterline.
  • A topping over the compost in a container at 5 to 7cm, deep enough to stop vine weevils laying their eggs in the surface.

DIY Guides & Inspirational Ideas

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How to do a Simple Jar Test and Analyse Garden Soil Texture

How I quickly determine the type of soil I’m working with.

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5 Problem Soils and How to Improve Common Garden Soil Types

How I identify garden soils that need improving or removing.

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Gravel Calculator: Estimates the Number of Bags You Need and Total Cost

The best way to work out exactly how much you need for your gravel project.

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LECA Maintenance

LECA asks for almost nothing once it is in, but it wants one job doing first. Rinse it before first because the bag carries a fine clay dust that turns to mud in water and blocks filters and drain lines. In a semi-hydro pot, flush the pellets with clean water about once a month to clear the fertiliser salts that show as a pale crust. Used as a topping, add a centimetre or two each spring to hold the layer at 5 to 7cm if birds flick the pellets about.

Purchasing Tips

LECA is sold by volume rather than weight. Work out cubic metres first, length by width by depth in metres, and remember one cubic metre is 1,000 litres. The calculator on this page will do the volume sum, but read the cubic metre figure and ignore the kilos, because the weight it returns is worked out on stone rather than clay pellets.

Two things before you order. Colour and pellet size shift slightly between firings, so buy the whole job in one delivery rather than topping up later and ending up with a two-tone planter.

If you would rather talk your LECA order through with a person, ring Outdoor Aggregates on 0330 043 7585. The office is open 7am to 7pm, seven days a week.

Depth Coverage per 70L bag Coverage per 1,000L bulk bag
25mm 2.8m² 40m²
50mm 1.4m² 20m²
100mm 0.7m² 10m²

FAQs

What is LECA made of?

LECA is made from natural clay, pelletised and fired at around 1,150°C until each pellet expands and hardens. What leaves the kiln is a ceramic shell around a honeycomb core, which is where both the light weight and the water-holding come from.

What is 4-10mm LECA best used for?

LECA at 4-10mm suits planter drainage layers, mixing into compost and heavy soils, semi-hydro houseplants and pot toppings. It is the finer of the two grades sold in the UK, so it packs closer than 10-20mm and works better in smaller pots and in mixes.

Does LECA float?

Dry LECA floats until the pores fill with water, which takes roughly 24 hours in a bucket. Soak it before it goes into a water feature, a reservoir or an outdoor container, or the first downpour will lift loose pellets over the rim.

Does LECA change soil pH?

LECA sits close to pH neutral and is chemically inert, so it will not move the pH of a border or a potting mix either way. That is what makes it safe around acid-loving shrubs and alkaline beds alike.

How much LECA do I need for a planter?

LECA for a planter is worked out by volume, and a 70 litre bag covers 0.7m² at 100mm deep. In anything deeper than about 40cm I allow a full 100mm layer.

Can LECA be reused?

LECA can be reused more or less indefinitely, because fired clay does not rot, compact or lose its structure. Wash the roots and dust off it, sterilise it in boiling water if it is moving to a different plant, and it goes back in as good as new.

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