S/H question

[Tikva]

Is the S/H medium just clay pellets? Are all clay pellets created equal? I really want to try this, but I know an order online will be much larger than what I would buy in person. Don't ask.
Can a person buy S/H medium at one of the home improvement stores?

[Marty]

I bought 25lb bags of clay pebbles for my frog tanks at Rona (Canadian Home Depot). I later found out that a friend of mine bought 50lb bags for just a bit more from some nursery

[Neofalcata]

I will let someone else much more knowledgeable pipe in about what S/H medium is made of and such.

But if you really want to try S/H, Firstrays has a great starter kit that got me hooked. It comes with two plastic pots, enough Primeagra to fill them, and some root growth starter. It got me hooked! You can try it first, cheaply, and see how you will like it.

[Ray]

Originally Posted by Tikva

Is the S/H medium just clay pellets? Are all clay pellets created equal? I really want to try this, but I know an order online will be much larger than what I would buy in person. Don't ask.
Can a person buy S/H medium at one of the home improvement stores?

I suppose one might say they are "just" clay pellets, but they are certainly not all "created equal."

The Lightweight Expanded Clay Aggregate (LECA) was originally developed as a concrete additive, intended to become "shear stoppers" within the cement matrix, but lighter in weight than a typical granite pebble.

Along comes those damned creative horticulturists, and they find that it can be used as a substrate for flow-tray hydroponics, providing the mechanical stibility for the plants as nutrient solutions are constantly pumped through.

While all of them are pretty "equal" in that specific application, once you relocate them into a static (cheaper), individual (avoids pathogen transfer from plant-to-plant through the solution) hydroponincs (Semi-Hydroponics), the individual properties of capillarity, pore size, pore form, particle size, particle shape and uniformity, water absorption- and release rates end up playing major roles in how they perform.

Yes, I am very vested in saying so, but my research has shown that PrimeAgra has the best overall combination of qualities, and I'm working with the producer to improve it, but I am not saying that other brands will not work. It depends a lot on your conditions and application.

For example, South Florida growers, who are lucky enough to grow their plants outdoors, can use almost anything, as the frequnet rains will keep the medium moist, so wicking is less of an issue. For us farther north it becomes a far more critical parameter.

[Heather]

Personally, I vote Prime Agra! I've always heard it is the best and no, I don't think you can get it at HD or Lowes or the like. At least not PA.

The "problem" (not for Ray!) I've found is that once I put one in, I have to put them all in. So, the starter kit wouldn't work for me, I'm too anal.

[Neofalcata]

See Ray, I knew your explanation would be much better than my "wet rocks good" speech.

Heather,

How long did you have your phrags in it before switching them back?

[Heather]

Originally Posted by Neofalcata

Heather,

How long did you have your phrags in it before switching them back?

Probably not long enough. Not 6 months. I got freaked out. A couple things led to my freak out:

I have heard that people have had mixed results, long term, with Phrags. I had a couple that just weren't happy (my fault, I'm pretty sure - I think it was a case of not getting every speck of old medium off, and I got the awful webby stuff and I couldn't get rid of it and I refuse to use physan if at all avoidable) so I got concerned about them all and switched them back. I also had some pricey plants I was experimenting with and that freaked me out.

It was also problematic because the first time I tried S/H I didn't move everything over, I just tried a few, and because of that, I had two different watering schedules going on and that just makes me crazy! It's why I only grow Paphs and Phrags - I can't keep track of more than two schedules, and all the Phrags have to be on one and all the Paphs have to be on the other. Using S/H with only a few of my plants meant like 4 schedules. This is also why I "neglect" my Mexipedium - it is a third schedule.

Then there is my issue with pots - at the time I had a lot more plants, which took up a lot more space, and square pots are easier to fit than round pots. And, there's the issue of me having to have all my plants potted in the same kind of pot. I don't like mixing pot types. They all must be clear, and preferably square (although now I'm okay with the round S/H pots because I have less plants.)

What was that someone was saying about an asylum?

[Neofalcata]

I have had some cobweb gunk on one or two, but after pulling them, rewashing the roots and repotting, it dissapeared. It was definitely caused by not getting all the old media of the roots. I was lazy on a couple, lesson learned. I plan on pulling them all in a month or two to make sure roots are the only thing growing in there.

[Ray]

I don't undestand Heather's avoidance of Physan, but I have to tell you that it really isn't all that necessary anyway. I use it for aethetic purposes - keeping algae at bay - and one ounce liquid bleach per gallon will work, too. With the right watering regime, any decomposition products (even healthy roots die eventually, so there will always be some "rotting" going on) will simply be flushed out of the pot.

I also don't buy the "long term" issues with phrags in S/H. I have plants that have been in semi-hydroponics for over ten years, and they're just fine. Slippers were the subjects of my first experiments.

As to the watering schedule thing, I would have thought S/H would have helped, especially with a totally-slipper collection. OK, you're on your own with the mexipedium, but done right, it is likely that other media/culture methods will require more frequent watering than does a plant in semi-hydroponics, and there is no such thing as "too frequent" watering with S/H culture. Then again, I don't know your conditions, but that's certainly the case for me.

[Neofalcata]

Ray,

Over watering was one of my concerns with Phals. I love to water, so phrags and me get along fine. But with my phals that are growing S/H, are you saying I could water twice a week instead of one and they would be fine? Once a week watering of the phals seems to let the mix dry out quite a bit, maybe too much. But I am new to phals so everything about them freaks me out.