Hygrolon ....plastic mesh
 

Could someone tell me where to purchase Hygrolon.
Amazon where i always shop didn't know what it is.
Is there another name for it? TIA

John

Look for commercial air conditioning / heating system air filters. Some of them appear to be made of the same thing as far as I can tell. You might be able to just cut them up.

The new product that replaced Hygrolon is "Spyra".

In the textile industry, they are known as "3D spacer fabrics".

Glass Box Tropical has this material. Look on habitat supplies.

Thanks to all that responded.

This product can be a bit pricey. Think these products
would work? Used the Easy Liner in my kitchen cabinets
and its soft. (see attached pic's)

Not sure what you are using the Hygrolon for. I have it my terrarium to wick water up the wall of my tank. This is a woven cloth fabric. The orchids are attached to cork slabs that are against the Hygrolon for moisture and to keep humidity high. A plastic material would not do this.

The shelf-lining material is hydrophobic. Water would not stick to it, and would not wick up the material.

If you will have a misting system to wet the orchids planted on the Hygrolon substitute, you can use the heavy-duty landscape fabrics put down under mulch on large commercial installations. This sort of material is almost the thickness of carpet pad, and is not the landscape fabric sold at big-box stores. This sort of fabric is also used for living walls.

Thanks bjmac and estacion.
Didn't know this product was a woven cloth material. I had planed to use it for a background or a drip wall. Will shop Glass Box.

The material sounds like performance athletic wear, you know, "wicks moisture". I'd checkout goodwill and fabric stores first.

---------- Post added at 11:33 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:07 PM ----------

Like this stuff I got at the fabric store
https://i.imgur.com/3EPSFMx.jpg?1

Yes, it 's the same technology, only thicker and of a better color for use with plants.

Holy bump, but it's relevant. Athletic wear spacer mesh is too thin and light to be a close substitute for Hygrolon. Mattress fabric can be closer, but I couldn't find it for sale anywhere besides imported from Alibaba. Other things I found was speaker grill fabric (still too light, but better), upholstery padding (e.g. the stuff they put in seats or bag straps, very close to Hygrolon specs), and designer fabrics (e.g. from Mood Fabrics, also very good candidate).

I want to make a S/H type setup, but with a vertical growing surface. That means the fabric and whatever that's supporting it would sit in water and wick water upwards passively. Pots are a bit space-inefficient for some plants with shallow root systems. Mounting gives more growing surface over the same radius of space, but I'm not willing to sacrifice using inorganic medium.

The 5700 yards of 3D spacer fabric I bought was about 1/4” thick, but it’s not the thickness that controls the wicking as much as it is the tightness of the weave and it’s pattern.

I ended up selling most of it to a guy that made wet walls out of it. He would take a long piece and then fold it back on itself several times, creating a series of horizontal “waves”. Stitched vertically (using an upholstery sewing machine), those “waves“ became pockets in which to insert the plants.

He used a small, submersible pump to trickle nutrient solution down from the top, and the wicking of the fabric spread it evenly.

3D air mesh is also another name for this and it is used to make car seats

I guess what I think the thickness provides is more or less room for the roots to move through. Your other post puts that into question, Ray, but I still wonder if the roots would grow more proliferous under less constraint. The thickness also has the effect, it seems, that it requires a heavier material to maintain its structure. For example, the ripstopbytheroll.com 1/8" mesh is 320gsm, and the 1/4" is nearly 600gsm. The heavier material may or may not wick better, but it should hold more water, if one was to spray it for example.

I guess the ideal material should have the following properties:

• It should wick water to a reasonable height (in my opinion 1-2 feet, but not more, or it would get too wet near the bottom).
• It should hold a maximum of water per some area that provides enough water to the plant without being too wet.
• Roots should have no problem growing around the fibers and attaching to them (this shouldn't be a problem according to Ray).
• Does the thickness provide a better air to moisture ratio for the roots that grow into them?

Also, because the backing to the fabric samples I bought are more dense, then the roots probably couldn't grow through the back, which is what I'd ideally want, if I put clay behind it, or maybe sandwich Matala mats in between.

If it's not a secret, can I ask where you got the AquaMat material, Ray? Presumably, you stopped selling it, or are you interested in bringing it back in the future?

Truthfully, I don't recall for sure, but I think it was Apex Mills.

My first purchase of 5700 yards (x 84" wide, by the way) was an overrun from someone else's order. I stopped selling it because the minimum purchase for new production was 15,000 yards, costing well over $50,000, and requiring lots of warehouse space.

i don't think it matters.

if you are setting the wall up to retain the moisture and will be adding a way to reirrigate it, just use the open one and then reirrigate more often...that is always better than any stale water sitting anywhere

that said, if you get the thick stuff, it is nonorganic and it really is fine always moist in my experience so get the one that's cheaper or more readily available

Well, maybe I could pretend to be a buyer and ask them for a "sample" :lol:

DirtyCoconuts, I guess I'm trying to do something like this, except with the bottom sitting in a reservoir, and the middle filled up with clay instead of moss.

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/9f...A0P6bxGOtLMwww

I think ultimately the material might just depend on the plant itself and its requirements. But I would like to find a source for a material with a more open backing layer.

By the way, a little bit of math, if I have a standard shelf, say 2' under the light. With an 8" pot, I have 16pi square inches of growing space. But with a 6" cylinder (leaving some room for foliage overhang), 1' tall, I'd have 72pi square inches of growing space.

So to me, growing plants that spread, especially smaller epidendrums or bulbophyllums, if I could get a mount that behaves like S/H, this could be the next big thing.

The other option is to have a reservoir in the middle, whether by a clay pot, or any material that slowly seeps water out over time, like perhaps those water crystals, or the PET soaker irrigation hoses (but I think those need more pressure to work). I wonder if there are any materials that are "barely" water proof, holding water, but failing over time.

Katsucats, I don’t think your concept will work very well, assuming the “clay” on the inside is LECA.

I suspect that the LECA will absorb the liquid from the reservoir and the mesh, and having all of that free air movement around and through it, the water will evaporate quickly, limiting the vertical “reach” of the wicking.

Vendors will be happy to give you samples, but they’ll be odd colors and only swatches of a few square inches. Once you get one texture you like, you can ask if they have any overrun material.... If the do, they’ll likely want you to take it all.

I've also gotten a bit obsessed with using some of this hygrolon material recently and got into a bit of experimenting!

However, no hygrolon was available in Europe, so taking advice on here I just went on ebay and bought quite a large amount of "3D spacer material" for £10 (ie about 13USD). I don't think its even the thickest stuff available.
As I'm a bit of a cheapskate, my current method is:
1) Take one used, empty plastic bottle (eg fruit squash, coke etc.) + saw off the top (say height around 25cm)
2) Take material and cut one continuous piece covering entire inside and out with small amount of overlap + superglue (gorilla glue) on.
3) Glue on some sticks collected from outside (microwaved briefly first to get rid of bugs) to provide support if needed, or give the roots something organic to climb up.
4) Glue/tie with thread on some moss from outside...wait for glue to dry
5) Mount your orchid - more thread
6) Place inside your drip / humidity tray on an windowsill & fill up every 2-4 days.

I've done a few versions with various aerangis so far. The first one was more proof of concept and I'll rearrange next year with something nicer to look at, moss + sticks etc..

Most of the orchids seem to be growing well. You can adjust their height on the tube for dampness (wetter towards the bottom) or add extra moss.

The water wicks from both inside the tube and what is in your humidity tray.

Photo is an angreacum germinyanum that I mounted a couple of weeks ago...since then it's growing new roots + leaves. The earlier version (and rather less aesthetically pleasing tube) has a mystacidii in spike, and a punctata that is growing new leaves...This is on an east facing windowsill, no terrarium etc.

Pretty happy with the results tbh. Obviously your CA climate is likely a bit drier than the UK. (Humidity here today 66%) I imagine a hurricane vase would be sufficient to get the humidity up if needed...hope that helps!

Ray, I think the LECA might wick some water away, but it would also hold more water than air. With the fabric exposed to air on both sides, I posit the evaporation of moisture out of the system would be faster than if some LECA wicked some of the moisture, but held onto it.

For example, if the evaporation rate was faster than the wicking rate, then the LECA above the water line in S/H would be dry. But we know that there is a gradient of moisture only a certain distance above the water line, and the water doesn't move continuously up the pot (e.g. imagine if you had a really tall S/H pot). If the LECA wicks some of the water and holds onto it, while the fabric material keeps pulling water up from the reservoir, that would actually be the intended effect. The fabric just has to be thick enough to pull water near the top before it gets fully wicked.

It helps that when I flush, the LECA will be pre-wet, and also that the LECA is surrounded horizontally and could only evaporate a limited distance upwards, or otherwise back into the fabric, if the fabric becomes drier than the LECA (which shouldn't be the case as long as there's still water in the reservoir). If the fabric is much more efficient at wicking than the LECA, then it becomes in effect a vertical extension of the reservoir, in my opinion, and the LECA remains the actual medium.

The difference is instead of dictating reservoir height by the height of the holes on the side of the pot, the reservoir height is dictated by the fabric properties or number of layers.

Spiffy, that's an excellent idea!! I may be able to fit a reservoir on top and let it wick downwards. Then I won't have to worry about the water not reaching the top. Thanks for the tip!

As it may not have been obvious from the photo/desc. - no need for a reservoir on top as it's just a hollow container. I fill so that it overbrims slightly and runs down the side and into the drip tray. Then what's left inside wicks up and over the edge for the next few days.

That said, the limit on these things is the wicking power of the material. I think realistically max height is about 25cm. If you wanted to go larger then possibly your idea using a clay pot reservoir on top would be better.

If you search on this forum there's something similar using two clay pots silicone'd together, surround with sphag moss + then sealed within mesh material (or I think two dracula-type mesh pots joined together). Think it's referred to as a 'jungle log'. I may give this a go myself soon!

Wicking involves four aspects: absorption, surface tension, proximity of “neighbors” and evaporation. The greater the absorption and/or proximity of neighbors, the faster the wicking.

LECA absorbs better than polymeric fibers as the tiny pores take full advantage of the ability of surface tension to fill voids, but the contact area between particles is relatively small. Polyester fibers do absorb water to a very limited degree (compared to porous clay), but it is the small voids of the weave and their close proximity that is Hygrolon’s “claim to [wicking] fame.”

Clay pellets have more air exposure per unit volume, so the evaporation rate is greater. However, if the evaporation rate is minimized, both will be wet clear to the top of the column.

Spiffy, I think I get how your system works. I have the desire to try to get the roots to grow towards the center of the system as opposed to just around the perimeter, though. For me, I could still make use of your suggestion by putting a reservoir over the LECA in the center.

Ray, you may be right about the absorption and surface tension. I don't have data for any of the materials. With the geometry accounted for, it may be moot.

Air exposure per volume however, since the LECA has more depth, I don't see how it could have more. Like the other factors, we can't just take them in a vacuum, we must take into account the geometry of the system. So imagine a single sheet of fabric, 1/8" thick, cut out in a unit square inch. Placed vertically, it would be exposed to air by the left and right side, or 2 square inches of exposure per 1/8 cubic inches of volume. A 1-inch diameter LECA ball would have pi/6 cubic inches volume and pi square inches surface area. So per unit volume, the fabric actually has 2.7 times the air exposure.

As we add more LECA in the middle though, it would trap more moisture and decrease evaporation.

Well, there's no point in speculating whether it would or wouldn't work. I'll build a proof of concept once I get my hands on another 50L of LECA and some Monto clay.

Yes, but they aren't 1" diameter balls...

You might be right here, but this is my thinking:

If the spheres were perfect spheres and uniform in size, they would occupy about 60% of the volume they take up, no matter the size. The strip of fabric - because of the tightness of weave (small pores) - occupies a greater percentage of the volume it occupies. Because the voids are essentially full of water, they totally fill the void space.

So the spheres occupy 60% of the cubic foot volume pot they are in, but with a piece of fabric that's 12" x 8' x 1/8", it's external volume is also 1 cubic foot, but the unoccupied porosity within is much less than the 40%.

I see... But at least in my case, I'm not using the fabric for the same role as LECA. The fabric will only be used on the circumference of a cylinder (as shown in the picture several posts ago), and the LECA will fill the center. I think your analysis would be spot on if I was debating whether to fill the center with LECA or a whole roll of the fabric.

Yes, using LECA would dry the fabric more compared to using a hard plastic backing, but that's the trade off for increasing the root zone volume by up to 16 times. I could even split the difference by putting a plastic reservoir in the middle, separated by LECA, to give e.g. Bulbophyllum roots 2-3" to grow into. Now I'm wondering if it's possible to connect wicks to the sides of a reservoir with a gasket. I don't have much building experience.

Either put a reservoir at the bottom and rely 100% on wicking or rig a up a way to trickle water down from the top and let gravity do most of the work.

A central, cylindrical reservoir with wicks to the Hygrolon will tend to drain itself rather quickly, leaking on the floor as the hydrostatic pressure will push the water out faster than it can be wicked up.

Now then, if you can wrap the fabric around a porous ceramic body like a cool-log or even a clay flower pot, the leakage through tho pot wall will be better contained.

Keep in mind that wicking materials that absorb, like a violet wick or shoelaces will concentrate the fert and salts as they are almost impossible to flush.

I like the idea here but the more materials you introduce the more issues you will have with their interaction

One idea I’ve had is to place a shot glass in the top of the mount with little edges of the hygrolon in the glass. You can add water there and it will be pulled out and down but not too much that it will all leak out

Not necessarily.

The 3D mesh is most likely polyester fiber, which has very little surface porosity with precipitating solids to “grab onto”. Sure, there can be some precipitation as droplets held in the mesh evaporates, but there is little-to-no bond to the fibers, so they easily brush off when dry or rinse off with water.

I used the US equivalents for years and saw only minor accumulation of minerals.

I was not speaking about the hygrolon...I agree with you about that. He mentioned connecting wicks to the side of the reservoir, that precipitated my comment

If he uses hygrolon strips as the wicks that would probably work.

Gotcha.