what is this white stuff at the base of and in the roots of my (dying) lavender hedge?

ergo

Planted a French lavender hedge 2 years ago, did ok for first year, then clearly not thriving too well last year

thought maybe soil draining not good enough, maybe not enough direct sunlight (it was Lidl purchase, Lavender Stoechas "anouk" btw),

so decided to pull it up and replace with English lavender, but when I pulled up some of the plants today I found this white stuff in the soil of most (not quite all) of the plants, it is almost like polystyrene but you can break it and crumble it down

is this a type of fungus? do I need to clear and remove all the soil now too - there is some overhang nearby from a neighbour's tree but doesn't look like anything off that

thanks for any thoughts...

Reckless Abandonment

Its probably just perlite. Its used to help drainage/aerate soil. I add it to alot of my potting mixes.

ergo

thanks for that

Perlite would be great

the thing is , I dug up this area 2 years ago and didn't notice anything like this, I added a bit of generic Lidl compost to the soil that was already there when putting down the lavender plants, there was no white perlite that I could see in the compost - after 2 years would it start to look like this...?

Jim_Hodge

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118849526#Comment_118849526

It was in the compost of the potted plant when you planted it.