Holes in glass (which drill to buy question)

[DirtyCoconuts]

there is a trick with some kind of putty that you make a reservoir to hold water and the bit in place....it seems like a TON of work but it had good results .


i just use the thumb of my left had outstretched and let the drill bit spin against the side of the first knuckle...the bit is smooth on the side and the water i am spraying keeps it sliding.

it bites into the work quickly enough

[Ray]

DO NOT use an impact drill on glass.

[Maru777]

Originally Posted by Ray

DO NOT use an impact drill on glass.

Thank you for the advice and no worries, it said so on the drill bits package also - to not use the glass bits with impact drills - and I generally follow instructions I imagine that would have the potential of shattering the glass quite spectacularly.

I managed to drill quite a few holes by now and got a lot more comfortable with the process because I absolutely love SH. SH also showed me that I was soooo underwatering my orchids. I was so scared of getting their roots to rot that I did not water them enough. And being in an environment where I can pretty much get away with murder culture-wise as long as I stick with warm growers, I never realized how badly I was underwatering because they were still doing perfectly fine, none died, they bloomed, they grew. But once I moved some to SH I realized how the plants should actually look and how fast they should grow by comparison with their bark potted brethren. What a surprize that was So SH has been a huge improvement for all of my plants, even the ones that are not in SH

[WaterWitchin]

That's great Maru! That's why mine are in SH... for a bit different reason. Wasn't afraid to water, but just wouldn't get around to it when in bark... benign neglect. It really improved performance in mine with that visual of seeing the moisture level each time I looked at them.

Drilling a few holes in glass successfully really boosts the confidence level, doesn't it? It changes the way you look at glass vessels in a store as well.

[Ray]

Originally Posted by Maru777

I never realized how badly I was underwatering because they were still doing perfectly fine, none died, they bloomed, they grew. But once I moved some to SH I realized how the plants should actually look and how fast they should grow by comparison with their bark potted brethren. What a surprize that was

Water is the true driving force for growth. Not fertilizer, not additives - water.

• It is the raw material with the greatest mass used. A plant consumes >180 kg to produce 1 kg of mass. (But only 9-10 g of NPK)
• 90-95% of a plant is water, and that’s over and above the amount used to form tissues.
• If water is plentiful at the roots, hormones trigger stomata to be opened, allowing the gas exchange that leads to carbon fixation (i.e., “growth”).
• Then we have to add the water that must be taken up to compensate for transpiration losses.

If you come up with the proper potting medium that allows for copious amounts of moisture without suffocating the root system, once acclimated to the “new normal”, your plants will always to better than if you have to wait for the potting medium to dry out.