How often water or flush plants in s/h?

[camille1585]

Rosie, the one change I would make is to empty the cache pot entirely after draining, then fill up with an inch of clean water. Otherwise your reservoir is just water full of waste products from the flushing.
I too have leca which doesn't wick well, anf my modified S/H pot is doing much better, probably because a standard clear pot isn't as tall as my S/H deli containers.

[RosieC]

Yeah, probably a good idea Camille, but I didn't think it would matter as with Ray's method the reservoir will have the same water left in that had flushed through the pot.

Often it ends up that way anyway because I forgot and fully empty the cache pot like I do with those in bark... then remember I intended to leave some in and so top it back up again

[camille1585]

I may be wrong, but I first flush by filling to the top and letting drain (or run water through for 15sec or so), then fill with fertilized water. I figured it's probably better to ahve nice clean water...

[NYCorchidman]

Originally Posted by camille1585

I don't think you need to run water through that long, and that often, if you don't let the leca get completely dry (= mineral deposits).
For my 2 plants in 'normal' S/H the reservoir is empty in less than a week when it's warm, and i let water run through the pot for maybe 15-20 seconds each time I refill. For the one in the dish I think it could last at least 2 weeks, but I still change the water and flush the pot at the same time as the others. But when I go on vacation for 3 weeks in August I'll put all of them in a large dish of water.

I wouldn't use those hydroponic kits with inner + outer pot, there is no way to flush out the pots.

They were advertised solely for orchids, though. Are they lying then??
Maybe I can take the inner pot out of the outer pot and rinse it weekly?
This is quite confusing.

[DTEguy]

Originally Posted by camille1585

I may be wrong, but I first flush by filling to the top and letting drain (or run water through for 15sec or so), then fill with fertilized water. I figured it's probably better to ahve nice clean water...

Hi Camille,

When you fill the fertilized water after you flushed, do you fill it to the top and run out the rest?

[RosieC]

Originally Posted by NYCorchidman

They were advertised solely for orchids, though. Are they lying then??
Maybe I can take the inner pot out of the outer pot and rinse it weekly?
This is quite confusing.

It's not so much that they are lying, but that experienced growers have found reasons (in this case flushing) why other methods are preferable.

Unfortunately it's often the case that companies sell/make accesories for orchids which are based on a sound idea, but are not advertised for the correct use, or are not implimented in quite the perfect way. (That's why Ray's store is so good, because he's an experienced grower and knows what works )

Other examples of this include the medium sold in my local garden center for orchids. It's made by a big name producer of garden products, it has a nice big picture of a phalaenopsis flower on the side and says 'Orchid Compost'. Unfortunately while it's stuff that would be good for a terrestrial orchid, it's going to smother the roots of a Phal like the one on pictured on the packet. I would guess that someone has designed a medium for terrestrial orchids, but the person in marketing designing the bag has just seen the word Orchid and found a nice picture of what they think an orchid is like and stuck that on the bag. That's just a guess as to why, but you come across this sort of thing again and again especially in the bigger manufacturers who don't specialise in orchid products.

[camille1585]

For the medium, I don't think it's necessarily that they accidently made a terrestrial mix. They want to produce the mix on the cheap, and good quality bark and other is expensive. Cheaper to chuck in peat, some styrofoam pellets and a few slivers of decomposing bark. The average Joe looking to repot his supermarket Phal doesn't know the difference between a good and bad mix anyway. That's how I see it...
Speaking of which, I have a colleague who potted her new Phal in potting soil. I recommended bark (and would give her some), but she says the Phal is doing great and doesn't want to change....

[Ray]

Originally Posted by NYCorchidman

They were advertised solely for orchids, though. Are they lying then??
Maybe I can take the inner pot out of the outer pot and rinse it weekly?
This is quite confusing.

Just think about the physical processes going on in the pot:

The majority of the evaporation occurs at the top surface of the medium. Liquid, wicking up from below, is what keeps it replenished, but it also carries minerals and plant wastes with it, which concentrate at the top surface, precipitating to become the "buildup" we and the plants hate.

If you just keep "topping up" the reservoir, you are just prolonging the time, allowing more and more buildup to occur. That is true with all types of S/H pots.

With the S/H pots of my design, with the two holes in the sidewall, if you fill the pot to the top and let it drain, then every watering is also a flushing. With the 3-component pots - Leni, Luwassa, and other brands - you have to remove the plant in the culture pot, dump the outer pot/reservoir, flush the culture pot manually, then reassemble and add enough fertilizer solution again, without overfilling (something that simply cannot be done with my pot design).

Like Jim, some of my houseplants are in the Luwassa pots, but none of the orchids are.

[DelawareJim]

What Ray just described was exactly what I was doing with my orchids until I moved them to s/h; take out the inner pot, dump the contents, rinse the inner pot, put it back in the outer pot, and fill with fresh solution. Bit of a chore, but I was willing to do it until I began breaking water gauges lifting the inner pot out. I didn't take a growing plant gaining weight into consideration and the vender failed to mention that part.

Something else to think about is repotting when the plant has grown. The inner pots have slits in the sides to allow nutrient solution into the LECA and there is a small void between the inner and outer pots for the solution. As the plant grows, roots grow out through the slits and fill the reservoir void. When it's time to pot on to the next size, you have to either cut roots off the plant to take it out of the inner pot, cut the pot off the plant, or buy a size big enough to accommodate the plant and the old inner pot.

Cheers.
Jim

[NYCorchidman]

Originally Posted by camille1585

For the medium, I don't think it's necessarily that they accidently made a terrestrial mix. They want to produce the mix on the cheap, and good quality bark and other is expensive. Cheaper to chuck in peat, some styrofoam pellets and a few slivers of decomposing bark. The average Joe looking to repot his supermarket Phal doesn't know the difference between a good and bad mix anyway. That's how I see it...
Speaking of which, I have a colleague who potted her new Phal in potting soil. I recommended bark (and would give her some), but she says the Phal is doing great and doesn't want to change....

I agree. The orchid potting mix I find at places like Home Depot or even stores at flower district are really terrible quality bark chips. I ended up using for mulch in the garden. served some purpose. lol

I had a neighbor who had phals in regular soil from the ground. His plants all died in the following month or two. He underwatered them. Otherwise they would have died much sooner. Ha~