Self watering pots

[Ravi]

How efficacious are the so called self watering pots in respect of Orchids? Most of these pots have an inner pot with a wick which goes to the outer ones with water which acts as a water reservoir. The draw back is most of the inner pots aren’t transparent and one loses touch with the root health and hydration of the plant

[MisterGuy]

I suspect, as with all things orchid, they are only effective if they meet specific needs you have. I would imagine that they would work fairly well in a very dry environment, ideally a hot one, where you can use it essentially like a semi hydro system, watering it "incorrectly" from the top to flush it out the fill spout. In my environment, you'd definitely need to treat it that way because my humidity would make it a far too wet way for a mix that can break down.

Also, the roots will either stay very small because it's so damp OR eventually invade the reservoir. It feels like mostly downsides to me.

[Ravi]

Thank you very much for the reply. I thought about dripper or drip irrigation system but a lurking suspicion that it will leave soggy roots and cause root rot especially Phalaenopsis, there are DeMo videos on YouTube about the use of drippers in orchids.felt can’t have set patterns coz climate is a deciding factor to set the drip.may be this system suited for terrestrial plants

[SillyKeiki]

I politely beg to differ.

I have been changing my collection to self-watering combined with LECA (lightweight expanded clay aggregates, you use them in semi-hydro) and I couldn't be happier and my life couldn't be easier.

I DIY-ed them using transparent tuppers inside opaque pots and a thread of micro-fiber cut from a new clean mop.

The Pros:

- An entire month without having to water.
- I can still check on the roots thanks to the transparent inner pot.
- Algae don't grow in the water because of the opaque outer pot.
- Using LECA means I will never have to change the media and disturb the roots unless the plant outgrows the current pot. When that happens eventually, transfer to a bigger pot is easy and won't harm the roots.
- Have I mentioned I can go on vacation and forget about watering?

The Cons:

- Megatron
- Soundwave
- Starscream
- Lol, I am kidding. I get a little efflorescence of salts, but I fix it by soaking and flushing once a month.
- I guess you cannot use it for every orchid, for example, I would never dare place Vandaceous roots inside any media. But with the ones I can? Wow I am changing them to this setup mate.

Plants I have in this system so far and doing great:

- Phalaenopsis (3)
- Cattleya (2)
- Tolumnia
- Oncidium Sharry Baby
- Brassidium Shooting Star
- Paphiopedilum American Hybrid
- Dendrobium cuthbertsonii

And I will be placing my little Catasetums as soon as the season is the right one to do so.

Note: I wouldn't use any other media other than inorganic, because of the constant moist, it would break down very fast.

[Ravi]

Thank you very much. How do you fertilise the plant when the outer pot / water reservoir is already full? I recently switched to self watering system with LECA +Perlite but only 4 pots on experimental basis and the rest I still maintain in the container and hydrate on required basis
I shifted to self watering Phal,Cattleya,oncidium one each experimentally.
What are the growth patterns of the plants potted in this method? Eg root , foliage growth and evolution of spike?

[SillyKeiki]

In my opinion, I think the best would be to use RO/distilled/rain water with very little fertilizer (maybe around 1/6 of strenght) in order to minimize the build up.

Unfortunately, I cannot afford this for myself, and I have to use my tap water, around 125ppm (I have a TDS meter). I have a little build up of salts and efflorescence, but the roots don't seem to be affected as the media is usually wet (dissolved salts are less likely to burn a root tip than dry ones).

So yeah, I do not have to add fertiliser because the water I keep in the reservoir always has a little fertiliser in it. I would only stop fertilizing and I would add plain water instead if the plant needed a dormancy period.

I believe you should experiment to find the best dose for your plants in your conditions.

---------- Post added at 08:36 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:29 PM ----------

Heck, I didn't answer your second question, sorry. The joys of writing on phone... ugh.

Anyway, my plants have only been in self-watering since this summer, so I haven't been able to record a lot of growth in that setup so far (as you know, orchids grow slowly).

If you are interested, I could take a few pics tomorrow with daylight (it is nightime here, and my phone camera doesn't take the best pics under poor light).

I currently have a Phal that is sending out 3 flower spikes (my best plant, humblest NoID with the best gene pool). And a few others are plumping up the pseudobulbs.