Orchids in Water Culture.

[Orchid_Fan85]

Hello everyone. I am new to this forum but have been a life long orchid fan.

I am living in Perth Western Australia and want to try growing some of my orchids in water culture as the climate is very dry here in summer.

I was wondering if anyone has had success growing orchids in water culture on their patio or outside? I have a shelf set up for my outside orchids on the veranda as well as a table indoors.

All the posts that I have read on water culture are about plants being grown inside by this method. Is there anyone who has used this method successfully outside?

Also I have a lovely large window in the sunroom but it is facing west... is it possible to grow orchids in a west facing window? If so how?

Thanks for your help. I am so glad I joined this forum.

Shaun

[RosieC]

Hi Shaun and welcome to Orchid Board

I wonder if instead of Water Culture a Semi-Hydroponic (S/H) method would help for your dry climate. This is a method which has a constant resevoir of water in the pot and uses an inorganic medium which will not rot.

We have a whole section of the forum here discussing growing in this method and I think there are a lot of our members who either grow this way or have tried it (I have a few I'm trying just now). Not sure if anyone has done it for outside plants or not but it might be worth asking over there.

Here is a link giving details of the technique to get you started. Ray whose website this is from is a regular contributor here on OB.
Semi-hydroponics

[Call_Me_Bob]

i grow some reed stem epidendrums like this. they do fine. i just change the water about once a week. they have roots all along the whole thing though. from the base and right above every single leaf

[Zoi2]

Hello and welcome to the OB.
I do a fair amount of growing in water culture, usually for rescue phals and catts. I have had them outside in partial shade with no problems other than they tend to need watering more frequently than my normal once a week.
Joann

[Orchid_Fan85]

Oh thank you guys!

I am glad to hear that there are some people that have had success with growing orchids in water culture outside.

Rosie... thanks so much for suggesting S/H I have been looking into it and will be trying it out on a few of my plants.

I have 3 epidendrums help, I might try putting one of them in water culture and seeing how they go.

Zoi2, you say that you have used water culture to rescue orchids, is it not a long term culture then?

I have seen all these wonderful pictures and discuss from Sun RM NE and was really intrigued by the idea of water culture. But he grows all his W/C plants indoors.

Thanks so much for your help guys.

[RosieC]

I think there are several people who have used it as a short term rescue method but not had long term success with it (hence why I suggested S/H as a long term one).

Having said that I think we do have members who have made it work long term and I think Sun rm.N.E. is one of them. One of the keys I think is to understand that the existing roots will die (actually this is common with S/H as well) and the new ones that grow down into the water will be adapted to that. I think that algea growth with also important for this to work long term as that provides oxygen in the water which the roots need.

You've perhaps already seen it but this thread has a good discussion on the subject.
Phalaenopsis in water culture

[RosieC]

If it works indoors I can't see why it wouldn't work outdoors, except that the water is likely to evaporate faster possibly.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

There may be only a small select few special orchids that should be grown in water culture, because of the way they grow in the wild.

One of them is Papilionanthe hookeriana.