My great-grandfather kept a christmas cactus for years, then my grandmother inherited it and after she died my aunt got it. The thing is 3ft across and they always grew it in 1/2 potting mix and 1/2 wood chips, exactly like you are showing.Then soak with water once a weekish or so. idk where the idea to have them in sand came from, but my family heirloom cactus is nearly 80 years old and does really well with this mix so I plant my own epiphytic cactus this way as well.
I've always used this exact mixture for Rhipsalis. I grow mine indoors in plastic pots. I considerd clay pots but I don't like having to water clay pots every couple days. All my Rhipsalis have always done great in plastic with this mixture and watered when starting to get dry, which is usually about once a week.
2 years ago I followed your recipe and the cacti I potted in this method have bloomed many times (I feed them). But no issues with root rot and just doing overall soooooo fabulous!
I am experimenting with Cacao hulls, smells wonderful and price wasn't bad for a big bag. Also Permatill makes a good Perlite substitute, not as prone to float; Permatill is expanded shale.
@@EpiphyticCacti I have cacao hulls in two 4-inch pots and it has the texture and size of the high quality orchid bark you demonstrated in one of your videos. These were planted about 2 months ago and I see no adverse reaction. I need to research nutrient content and see how long they persist in the growth medium before breaking down, compared to the life of orchid bark. If you have a dog, you would want to protect your stash of hulls from them. Theobromine is present in the hulls just as it is in the cocoa bean: harmless to humans, attractive and toxic to dogs, perhaps cats too.
Hello friends! I live in America and these are my ingredients. 1part Worm Castings 2parts FoxFarm Ocean Potting Soil 3parts Perlite #3 (super chunky) 4parts Premium Reptibark Bedding (100% Fir bar by Zoo Med from the Reptile Aisle at Petsmart) This may be unpopular with some, but I plant in no-drainage pots... mostly glass containers. Bottom 25% is LECA (Lightweight Expanded Clay Aggregate), followed by 75% Soil Mixture as listed above. Glass containers allow me to monitor the healthiness of roots and allow me to monitor the water level, which I keep right at or slightly under the LECA line. I use this method for aroids and epiphytic cacti.
I found I still had a big of New Zealand tree fern fiber when mixing a potting soil for a new rhipsalis yesterday and mixed it in with a gritty bonsai mix and some composted tree bark. I was quite impressed how fluffy the addition of tree fern fiber made the mix. Any thoughts from epiphylic cactus growers, or anyone else used/using tree fern fiber in their mix?
I haven't got any yet. I have heard very good things about tree fern fiber. I have a large amount of plants, so I would need to purchase bigger quantities, and that is yet another expense. I should get one bag and use it for my important planty plants!
Hi Josh, I don’t use coconut husk but I know a few growers who do and have liked it. I have used it for some orchids and Hoya. 😂 Hoya love the stuff 💚🌱
Wow I was going to ask .... I have this orchid mix and it’s Medium Orchiata Monterey Pine Bark Hydroton Large Sponge Rock AAA New Zealand Sphagnum Moss Can I use it with the garden soil MINUS the Sphag moss?! And then I got to the part when u added hydrogen!!! N I was like 👍 lol!! But I think I might swap sponge rock tho for what u had in middle cuz sponge rock IS perlite but not sure if PH is right ...... ! Thanks for vid this is great !!! This is the perfect mix I was looking for!!!!
Also what are the like ratios??? Like 1/3 to 1/3 to 1/3? And then with the addition of hydroton I guess also 1/3? ................so then all 1/4ths maybe....... lol
😂 I go with 1/3 potting soil, bark, and perlite and throw the hydroton in after as more of a safeguard because I need the extra drainage. It’s a bit of an experience thing as to how much hydroton To mix in. I have heavy rains sometimes for several days so I do add quite a bit. I would guess it ends up being 1/4 of each. In a dryer climate I wouldn’t mix it in at all though.
I'm not sure if someone mentioned this already--but is there a reason to use the clay pellets rather than lava rock? I imagine the pellets may have more water retention. Do you think substituting them would be a bad thing? xx
Hi Katerina, you can absolutely use lava rock as a drainage amendment for your mix. You are spot on about the difference in Hydroton. Whatever you use for your substrate is down to personal preference, what is available near you, and the environment you grow in. The ingredients aren’t as important as what the properties are for a good epiphytic substrate. 💚🌱
Thank you so much for this. Do you think vermiculite in grades 3 or 4 would provide something similar to what the clay balls do? Also have you ever planted selenicereus/hylocereus in this mix?
Hi, yes to both questions! For the potting mix it’s just anything big and chunky that will add drainage and aeration. I use this mix for almost all my epicacti including Selenicereus. I have used it for the single Hylocereus I used to grow. There are very few exceptions that I grow in a different substrate and they are usually small epiphytic species that have very sensitive roots like S. lutea, S. herminiea, S. opuntioides etc.
Thanks for your reply! I got some cuttings of what I believe to be selenicereus (probably undatus) from the sidewalk and was going to have a go at them. I’m not experienced with epiphytic cacti at all but I guess I discovered a new plant passion since I got my Baba’s cuttings! I’ve kept my nepenthes alive and even thriving so I want to get more epiphytes, I just love them and somehow they fit well with my ADHD 😅 I was thinking of trying to grow some epiphytic cacti in wire baskets with liners and thought that would be a good addition. I also was going to place a coffee filter at the bottom of the liner - I tried that in a terracotta pot and it slowed down the drainage too much but in a basket it could work. One way to find out…
Hi! I try to water Rhipsalis based on the branches. If they have thick branches I water them a bit less and let them dry out a bit more between watering. If the branches are thinner I try to water them more often. The thinner branched ones will tell you when they want water but I have to catch that their branches are looking decocted right away otherwise some of them can die or when they are watered they can get root rot. I have a video about Rhipsalis care that might help ua-cam.com/video/kouFtfpqbrQ/v-deo.html!
Potting media is like casserole, everyone has their own recipe, and it should be that way. You can tailor it to whatever works for you. The only thing I would suggest is to try it with 1 or 2 plants first, that aren’t your favorites, to make sure the worm castings aren’t too strong. You can also ask around in plant groups for advice from users that have experience using it. 💚🌱
That is very typical, you can go through the work of baking it etc or putting small rocks on top of it after potting to minimize them. They eventually die off but new commercial potting soil almost always has gnats.
Is there any bags of pine bark that don't cost an arm and a leg? I mean good lord, you can get heaps of wood for pennies but if you want pine bark for your potting soil its like 15 dollars for a small bag? It just seems crazy to me that it costs so much!
I just collect pine bark in the forest. But I heard it should be a kind of partially decomposed brak, from a trees that had been cut a few years ago or from the ground, not from living trees. I have been useing pine bark from the forest for about 6 months and as for now, it works as good as that one from the store.
It has always been my understanding that they prefer a slightly acidic media where the pH is between 5.5 - 6.5, however I know plenty of people who use azalea mix as the ‘soil’ component with great success and the pH is between 4.5 - 5.5. Researching kanuma soil it looks like it has a pH between 4.5 - 5.5, makes sense looks like it’s used to grow azalea as well. As note, tap water in the United States is more alkaline with a pH between 6.5 - 8.5, if growers who use azalea mix are watering using tap water they are likely offsetting the acidity of the media. Rainwater however would have a pH between 5.0 - 5.5 and wouldn’t do much to alter the acidity of the media. It might be a good idea to start with a small test plant using the kanuma soil. If the plant is struggling it might be too acidic and you could offset the acidity by altering the pH of the water you are using to make it more alkaline with products like ‘ph up’. I very much like to check my water pH with an inexpensive pH meter, they are well worth the investment. My tap water pH is just under 8.0 and I adjust it using ‘pH down’ to ~5.5.
@@EpiphyticCacti in Indonesia we don't have tap water, we used direct water from earth, I will tried using kanuma on my mixing Pot,,, hope it didn't rot... Anyway thanks for the answer
My great-grandfather kept a christmas cactus for years, then my grandmother inherited it and after she died my aunt got it. The thing is 3ft across and they always grew it in 1/2 potting mix and 1/2 wood chips, exactly like you are showing.Then soak with water once a weekish or so. idk where the idea to have them in sand came from, but my family heirloom cactus is nearly 80 years old and does really well with this mix so I plant my own epiphytic cactus this way as well.
I've always used this exact mixture for Rhipsalis. I grow mine indoors in plastic pots. I considerd clay pots but I don't like having to water clay pots every couple days. All my Rhipsalis have always done great in plastic with this mixture and watered when starting to get dry, which is usually about once a week.
Thanks for the post! Always great to read comments that can help other users out! 💚🌱
2 years ago I followed your recipe and the cacti I potted in this method have bloomed many times (I feed them). But no issues with root rot and just doing overall soooooo fabulous!
That is wonderful, thank you for sharing and I’m super happy to hear they are doing fabulous! 💚🌱
I like your mix👍🏻 I don’t know why I always forget that epiphytes grow in trees and not in the dirt/: I have some right now in the Wrong mix🤨
I am experimenting with Cacao hulls, smells wonderful and price wasn't bad for a big bag. Also Permatill makes a good Perlite substitute, not as prone to float; Permatill is expanded shale.
Mark Ogilvie let us know how the cocao hulls work out!
@@EpiphyticCacti I have cacao hulls in two 4-inch pots and it has the texture and size of the high quality orchid bark you demonstrated in one of your videos. These were planted about 2 months ago and I see no adverse reaction. I need to research nutrient content and see how long they persist in the growth medium before breaking down, compared to the life of orchid bark. If you have a dog, you would want to protect your stash of hulls from them. Theobromine is present in the hulls just as it is in the cocoa bean: harmless to humans, attractive and toxic to dogs, perhaps cats too.
Hello friends!
I live in America and these are my ingredients.
1part Worm Castings
2parts FoxFarm Ocean Potting Soil
3parts Perlite #3 (super chunky)
4parts Premium Reptibark Bedding
(100% Fir bar by Zoo Med from the Reptile Aisle at Petsmart)
This may be unpopular with some, but I plant in no-drainage pots... mostly glass containers. Bottom 25% is LECA (Lightweight Expanded Clay Aggregate), followed by 75% Soil Mixture as listed above. Glass containers allow me to monitor the healthiness of roots and allow me to monitor the water level, which I keep right at or slightly under the LECA line. I use this method for aroids and epiphytic cacti.
Thanks for sharing your method!
I found I still had a big of New Zealand tree fern fiber when mixing a potting soil for a new rhipsalis yesterday and mixed it in with a gritty bonsai mix and some composted tree bark. I was quite impressed how fluffy the addition of tree fern fiber made the mix. Any thoughts from epiphylic cactus growers, or anyone else used/using tree fern fiber in their mix?
I’ve wanted to get some and test it out for a while💚🌱
I haven't got any yet. I have heard very good things about tree fern fiber. I have a large amount of plants, so I would need to purchase bigger quantities, and that is yet another expense. I should get one bag and use it for my important planty plants!
have you tried mixing in chunks of coconut husk? I use it a lot for growing orchids and I'm testing it out on my epiphytic cacti as well
Hi Josh, I don’t use coconut husk but I know a few growers who do and have liked it. I have used it for some orchids and Hoya. 😂 Hoya love the stuff 💚🌱
Wow I was going to ask .... I have this orchid mix and it’s
Medium Orchiata Monterey Pine Bark
Hydroton
Large Sponge Rock
AAA New Zealand Sphagnum Moss
Can I use it with the garden soil MINUS the Sphag moss?! And then I got to the part when u added hydrogen!!! N I was like 👍 lol!! But I think I might swap sponge rock tho for what u had in middle cuz sponge rock IS perlite but not sure if PH is right ...... ! Thanks for vid this is great !!! This is the perfect mix I was looking for!!!!
Also what are the like ratios??? Like 1/3 to 1/3 to 1/3? And then with the addition of hydroton I guess also 1/3? ................so then all 1/4ths maybe....... lol
😂 I go with 1/3 potting soil, bark, and perlite and throw the hydroton in after as more of a safeguard because I need the extra drainage. It’s a bit of an experience thing as to how much hydroton To mix in. I have heavy rains sometimes for several days so I do add quite a bit. I would guess it ends up being 1/4 of each. In a dryer climate I wouldn’t mix it in at all though.
I'm not sure if someone mentioned this already--but is there a reason to use the clay pellets rather than lava rock? I imagine the pellets may have more water retention. Do you think substituting them would be a bad thing? xx
Hi Katerina, you can absolutely use lava rock as a drainage amendment for your mix. You are spot on about the difference in Hydroton. Whatever you use for your substrate is down to personal preference, what is available near you, and the environment you grow in. The ingredients aren’t as important as what the properties are for a good epiphytic substrate. 💚🌱
Thank you so much for this.
Do you think vermiculite in grades 3 or 4 would provide something similar to what the clay balls do?
Also have you ever planted selenicereus/hylocereus in this mix?
Hi, yes to both questions!
For the potting mix it’s just anything big and chunky that will add drainage and aeration.
I use this mix for almost all my epicacti including Selenicereus. I have used it for the single Hylocereus I used to grow. There are very few exceptions that I grow in a different substrate and they are usually small epiphytic species that have very sensitive roots like S. lutea, S. herminiea, S. opuntioides etc.
Thanks for your reply! I got some cuttings of what I believe to be selenicereus (probably undatus) from the sidewalk and was going to have a go at them. I’m not experienced with epiphytic cacti at all but I guess I discovered a new plant passion since I got my Baba’s cuttings! I’ve kept my nepenthes alive and even thriving so I want to get more epiphytes, I just love them and somehow they fit well with my ADHD 😅
I was thinking of trying to grow some epiphytic cacti in wire baskets with liners and thought that would be a good addition. I also was going to place a coffee filter at the bottom of the liner - I tried that in a terracotta pot and it slowed down the drainage too much but in a basket it could work. One way to find out…
@@arielilijeva3019love it, experimenting is a great thing. 💚🌱
Can you just substitute the leca for the pearlite if you are using good orchid bark?
Absolutely, I only mix in the extra hydroton because it rains so much here and perlite tends to work it’s way to the top over time.
Can you use any other kind of pine bark?
Sure, but you would need to do some research on the type of bark you want to use to be sure the pH is slight acidic.
Hello, when do you recommend watering rhipsalis? Do you let them dry out completely?
Hi! I try to water Rhipsalis based on the branches. If they have thick branches I water them a bit less and let them dry out a bit more between watering. If the branches are thinner I try to water them more often. The thinner branched ones will tell you when they want water but I have to catch that their branches are looking decocted right away otherwise some of them can die or when they are watered they can get root rot. I have a video about Rhipsalis care that might help ua-cam.com/video/kouFtfpqbrQ/v-deo.html!
Can I use worm castings INSTEAD of potting soil? And then mix with the bark and pumice?
Potting media is like casserole, everyone has their own recipe, and it should be that way. You can tailor it to whatever works for you. The only thing I would suggest is to try it with 1 or 2 plants first, that aren’t your favorites, to make sure the worm castings aren’t too strong. You can also ask around in plant groups for advice from users that have experience using it. 💚🌱
It is a very light soil that allows water and air to pass through well. Does it need drainage in this case?
I use pots with drainage holes, I’ve seen people just have a bottom filled with hydroton or something similar instead though.
Can you write the bark you use? I was not able to catch how it's spelled
Hi @Beatriz Costa, the bark brand is Orchiata!
Hello again did you use 2 part Pumice?
Equal parts bark, perlite, and soil.
What size of orchid bark do you like?
Small grade!
All potting soil I buy has fungus gnat eggs that hatch once I put my plant in it
That is very typical, you can go through the work of baking it etc or putting small rocks on top of it after potting to minimize them. They eventually die off but new commercial potting soil almost always has gnats.
What is the brand of bark?
Orchiata
instead of clay balls, could it be volcanic lava?
100%!!!
Is there any bags of pine bark that don't cost an arm and a leg? I mean good lord, you can get heaps of wood for pennies but if you want pine bark for your potting soil its like 15 dollars for a small bag? It just seems crazy to me that it costs so much!
Hi Tyler, unfortunately it’s a little hit or miss. I try to purchase large bags of Orchiata generally from Amazon which helps.
You can buy pine bark for reptile bedding from pet stores…large bag, much cheaper
I just collect pine bark in the forest. But I heard it should be a kind of partially decomposed brak, from a trees that had been cut a few years ago or from the ground, not from living trees. I have been useing pine bark from the forest for about 6 months and as for now, it works as good as that one from the store.
I agree with @elian68 regarding reptile bedding. It is washed and safe for animals. It comes in several sizes.
so, we can use acidic soil for epiphyllum right? so I can use kanuma soil then
It has always been my understanding that they prefer a slightly acidic media where the pH is between 5.5 - 6.5, however I know plenty of people who use azalea mix as the ‘soil’ component with great success and the pH is between 4.5 - 5.5. Researching kanuma soil it looks like it has a pH between 4.5 - 5.5, makes sense looks like it’s used to grow azalea as well.
As note, tap water in the United States is more alkaline with a pH between 6.5 - 8.5, if growers who use azalea mix are watering using tap water they are likely offsetting the acidity of the media. Rainwater however would have a pH between 5.0 - 5.5 and wouldn’t do much to alter the acidity of the media. It might be a good idea to start with a small test plant using the kanuma soil. If the plant is struggling it might be too acidic and you could offset the acidity by altering the pH of the water you are using to make it more alkaline with products like ‘ph up’. I very much like to check my water pH with an inexpensive pH meter, they are well worth the investment. My tap water pH is just under 8.0 and I adjust it using ‘pH down’ to ~5.5.
@@EpiphyticCacti in Indonesia we don't have tap water, we used direct water from earth, I will tried using kanuma on my mixing Pot,,, hope it didn't rot... Anyway thanks for the answer
What is size of perlite?
I try to get what I can, but these days I try to find Plant!T Super Coarse perlite 100L on Amazon or something comparable.
I use size three for a more airy soil.