Growing Phals in straight LECA, but not s/h - Orchid Board

Sandy4453 · #1 12-05-2009, 12:47 AM

Hi all! Anybody here growing their Phals (species or hybrids) in straight LECA, the old fashioned way, not s/h? I'm really curious to know your results and if you prefer this (or not) over other mediums and why. I use Hydroton on all my Catts and Bc's and have great results with it but, Phals...not sure what to expect or if it's advised against with these.

cb977 · #2 12-05-2009, 12:50 AM

Aliflor, Hydroton or good quality sphag is all I use for everything

Phals do great in it

I'm on my laptop and about to run out of battery power so I can answer more questions for you tomorrow..nite-nite

Sandy4453 · #3 12-05-2009, 12:52 AM

....there you go again, Sue....not telling me the whole story!

Becca · #4 12-05-2009, 01:12 AM

I would think that growing phals in straight LECA and not the s/h culture would require pretty frequent watering for a phal since they don't like to dry out to much. Perhaps Sue will have a chance to finish telling us how she makes it work for her and her phals soon!

Oscarman · #5 12-05-2009, 03:09 AM

With frequent enough waterings, I would expect them to be OK and in a higher humidity area. I have not grown phals this way though, only s/h.

smartie2000 · #6 12-05-2009, 03:14 AM

yes I believe my uncle grew this way a while ago. I think he misted his small orchid collection often. He had the best big white phal spikes. But he has passed now.

cb977 · #7 12-05-2009, 10:16 AM

Good morning

to finish what I was saying last night...

I decided when I first began growing chids that I was not interested in having to do a lot of repotting. With a large collection, it would be a lot of work and expense to keep replacing the bark so I tried aliflor. My local source for aliflor went out of business so I moved over to Hydroton as I'm not interested in paying shipping charges for 50 lb bags of LECA

Of course, some chids put up a fight and those I put into sphag. Everything seems to be happy now.

I also started out with having gravel in the trays but got too lazy so a lot of the chids sit in a bit of water

I use a hand sprayer to mist directly into the pots every day or two, depending on what the weather is like.