Backwards SH?

[katsucats]

I got the pot from Urban Homestead, it's the same one Bumpman used I'm pretty sure. They're about 30-40 minutes away from here.

I'm using tap water from the inside. If I want to fertilize it, I spray it from the outside. It's an experiment, so we'll see how well it works...

[Rivka]

im thinking of doing something like this with a Promenaea that i have been struggling with. i hear it my like cooler temps and so might tolerate the evap around the roots. mostly the spreading nature of the plant where everything grows from the underneath edge is causing me grief, all the new growths get bent up at the edge of the pot now and the flowers often get buried before i can see them and pull them out. so i have only had one full bloom, but many buds. i think this just needs to meander over the surface of something.

[katsucats]

I'm around Los Angeles and growing indoors, so I haven't given evaporative cooling much thought. Temps year round are pretty mild here. I'm mainly doing this for aesthetics and convenience. It's a lot easier just to fill up the jug than to bring a heavy clay pot to a faucet (I dislike the look of plastic pots).

The jug sweats a fair amount up to about 60% up vertically, and I refill every 3-4 days. It keeps the surface moist, unlike my cork mounts that dry up by the end of the day or the next. I spray my cork mounts 1-2 times a day to keep the sphagnum moss moist, and rinse it out occasionally in case there's mineral build up. But I haven't really had a problem with the sphagnum on the jug drying out. I suspect it will keep moist for up to a week, so I'm liking how easy it is.

Anyways, in my experience plants don't die easily, so if it doesn't look good after a few weeks, it'll probably go back into the pot.

[Rivka]

are they shipping again, thought the website said sold out?
what kind of child is that?

[katsucats]

They seem to restock often. I picked it up locally though, because the shipping is rather expensive. The orchid is a Bulbophyllum medusae, which I thought would be a good candidate because it doesn't like drying out, and it has rather thinnish roots that might make it easier to mount onto the smooth surface of the jug.

[Wrebbitrocks]

how are the plants doing btw. are they establishing themselves?

[katsucats]

No idea, to be honest. It hasn't been that long.

[katsucats]

Update...
I had a Bulbophyllum medusae that I tried mounting on an olla (clay jug). What I forgot to mention before was that most of its roots have dried out due to a prior mistake. I just cut out most of the dried roots today (shows what a noob I am).

The bad news is the plant lost 2 leaves, plus half of one more I accidentally karate chopped -- these Bulbo leaves are kind of brittle... Good news is it seems to be on the rebound. It's putting out new roots.





I previously thought the setup might be too wet, since some healthy roots turned soggy in the week after I first mounted it, but this next one dispelled the concerns I had. I guess the plant got used to it.



As you can see, the white thing on the bottom is the plastic saucer. The lower it is on the olla, the more it sweats.

I bought a few more smaller ollas from Arizona Pottery. The way I see it, this is like vertical S/H. Got a plant that needs to be mounted? I think I'm going to try an Aerangis or a leafless orchid in this -- basically any plant that needs high moisture that any other mounting system would just dry it out. The only drawback is these things are sort of expensive unless you can find a local source. Hopefully, since clay is inorganic, it would also last longer than a wood mount, although I do realize that it sitting in a pool of water makes it break down faster (I have to think of a solution for that.)

[tucker85]

I attached a couple of phals to Ollas also. It's been a couple of months and both plants are growing well but the roots don't seem to be attaching to the pot. I'm thinking that I may need to let the pot dry out occasionally to encourage the roots to attach. I'm just going to wait and see for right now.

[tucker85]

This phal has been on this olla for 2 or 3 months. It has grown new roots and 2 new flower spikes. But the roots grow just above the surface of the pot. They don't seem to want to attach. Like I said previously, I'm going to let the pot dry out a bit and see if the roots will attach then. This is a 1 gallon olla from Arizona Pottery.