Wicking
 

I am in a dry climate and I have found that using a wick in the water to the roots seems helpful because the top get dry quickly. I just started this so not sure if this will work. Does anyone else do this or had tried it?

I dont use a wick, but Semi Hydroponic growing uses the same principal. Works great for me!

I am in San Diego (Vista) as well and recently started using wicking for some of my orchids (oncidium, miltoniopsis and tolumnia), just testing if it works, but I do have some Cats in semi-hydro in lava rock and they are doing ok.

I grow many plants in semi-hydro. The LECA wicks moisture up into the root zone. It doesn't need to be moist at the top of the pot.

Others have reported success with wicking. Moreso than with flush watering, you must watch for mineral buildup at the medium surface.

Thanks for the info. That was helpful

Wicking reduced by top layer of river stones
 

Photo credit ... Taken from Nicole Deanna's semi-hydro video. I have used this on some of my plants, specifically my neofinetias. The river stones are not porus, and keep the Leca below from drying out. Flushing is still required.

I started using a wick about a month ago with the leca and it has made a huge difference with the orchids and especially my African violets.

In my environments, a wick has never been an advantage over the wicking capacity of the LECA itself, but in a dry environment - IF the wick has a large enough capacity - it may very well help.

Indoor winters around here are dry, so I started experimenting with a top-dressing of Grodan rock wool cubes, but have evolved to mixing them with the LECA, and that does a good job of equalizing the moisture gradient.

(Note to all: Sally was one of my S/H "early adopters" when she lived in PA. She has grown things in S/H culture I would never have imagined of.)

Great Success
 

Ray lived a town over from me and I don't remember how I heard about him and s/h and the whole idea just made sense! This was around 25 years ago and I have been using ever since. It cut down on my rot 95%.

Being is a dry climate now, I was having to water daily so I have been wicking for the last few months and it has worked so well for me on everything. My orchids, succulents, cactus, Caudiciforms and African violets that are all in S/H. Huge success for me. They all love it. I will still flush when I water. I bought a new Phal in Nov. and switched it to s/h. For me there would be a transition period where it would lose a leaf or two over 3 months and not be happy. This one hasn't skipped a beat and continued growing like nothing happened. My African violets were OK but now really thriving.
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