I found that all my Neofinetia Falcata did very well after i suspended th over my planted tank with a few roots dipped into the water. The roots which are in the water tend to look a bit bloated and a few root tips even rot off, however, the rest of their roots which are hanging in the air look wonderful and grow much better than before, and the leaves also show no sign of any lack of water. It's a zero maintenance way of ensuring my orchids always have enough water, since my tank water is topped up automatically, so i just have to pump the necessary water conditioner and fertilizer into the water daily
As I am now holding my first Maxillaria in my hand looking for how yours is doing in SH in leca, it’s so great to have your experience readily when I need it, thanks again 👍🏼
I'm often surprised that my opinions on new media change so dramatically over time, and things I thought wouldn't work are often the best 😆😆 It's fun to try new projects and find new options though! 🙂 I am glad you liked it too, Thankyou! 💗
The Orchid Room that’s exactly what makes experimenting so valuable! When we all plod along with the established way we might never realize that there’s a better one. I really appreciate your curiosity!
So I will need to see if I can find some bonsai media when I buy a Maxillaria tenaforia it appears to be the best. Maybe I could also try that on my Oncidium. Lots of info to take from thank you. Looking forward to seeing you trying this with a Zygo. Have a great day.
I got the small grade pumice by accident ( I wanted a medium size), and been using it for a bout two months now and love it! I put my variegated neofinetia and it seems very happy in there. I really like the pumice small grade as a media , however need more observation. I think thin root orchids really like these kind of media. I haven't used Kyodama and don't know it but it seems doing well for you. Thanks for sharing and happy growing.
She had mites so she's on the treatment table, think we are all clear now! All 3 of my Nellie's got spider mites, none of the milts did even though their leaves were touching. Think Nellie's are particularly susceptible!
Lovely update! I'd love to see a video on how you deal with these inorganic mixes when repotting, how you sort and clean them off when you have small grade medium mixed with large grade. Must be tricky to sort. Hugs from NYC 🤗
Hi! I just use a small metal sieve for small media, a large colander for large media🙂 I did a cleaning video here: ua-cam.com/video/XpN06knGa1I/v-deo.html It's the same process, just with a smaller sieve! Hope that helps!
I'll look into them! I chose S-te, different Pumice sizes, Horticultural moler and Superlite black as a starting point since they seemed hard and durable, and I was a bit unsure about the other properties of the rest!
@@TheOrchidRoom Really appreciate your effort. I know Kamuna has been used for Habenaria and some asian cymbidiums. Not sure if it's suitable for other types. I'm testing kiryu in small grain myself, and I'm so surprised to see how much water they can hold. It's also supposed to be good for mycorrhiza cultivation. Speaking of pumice, there is also a Japanese pumice called Hyuga. Compared with the regular pumice, it's slightly accidic, which should be more suitable for orchids.
Loving these videos, hoping you will do more of them :) Which inorganic medium so far would you say is your best contender for extremely fine toots and having no nutriants or minerals leeching?
Hi Annabel! Very interesting experiment and so successful, congratulations. I’ve transitioned my maxilaria ten. into semi hidro with leca for one month now. I am a bit worried cause the bulbs didn’t plump up so far still shriveled! Do have any advice? In the meantime I will give her more time to recover and adapt. Best wishes 🥂👍😘😘
Hi Marco! My tenuifoloa didn't skip a beat going into straight sh. Is your plant a good size? I've noticed small divisions I've taken for people stall for a very long time so that's why I ask. They produce new roots as the new growths mature, tunneling them down the stem, so it can take a while for newnroots to make it down to the media. They are very resilient and do great in SH, so I'm sure yours will recover! 🤞🙂
Thankyou, that means alot! 💗 Just some life stuff at the moment, not been feeling like filming much or had much inspiration for new videos, but I've done a few bits that I'll hopefully be able to edit soon 🙂 Any ideas for fun videos you'd like to see to help me out of the rut? 😆
@The Orchid Room I know what it is like feeling uninspired even to do something you are passionate about. You have just moved to a new house and who knows what else is happening. Just take your time Annabel🍀. I might have an idea for a video, I bought 3 cymbidiums this year and keep them outside until they have to be inside before winter ( that is what I am told to get blooms next year). I want to repot them into leca SH. I think it might be to late for that. Do you have a cymbidium in leca and would you repot them now? And don’t feel obligated to make this video now please. I will probably not do any repotting at this point since I have been doing almost all of them (more than 90) the last 2 months.🥵.
This is so funny because one of the videos I have filmed waiting to edit was me bringing the cymbidiums over from the old house bare root, removing a few years worth of bugs, earwigs and spider mites from being outside, and repotting. They've been in leca for a few years living outdoors in my mini greenhouse, still don't have a permanent setup for them in the new house though, they're too big for inside and the wooden greenhouse isn't moved over yet. I'll get on with getting that video together! Personally I wouldn't repot the cymbs now unless they're making new growths because they are a horrific mess to repot from organic, they're usually super root bound when you get them home and repotting usually damages the old roots. I've taken to not removing the old media for some cymbs, depending how root bound they are, and just filling around with LECA. Obviously its ideal to get the broken down super constricted bark mulch from out of the roots, but their roots break so easily and they don't really care if you leave it in honestly, often they've practically fossilised/ pulverised the old medium with pressure from their root-bound-ness 😅
The Orchid Room Wow! I can’t believe it😃 what a coincidence. Thank you for the suggestion, I will put it in Leca SH without disturbing the roots until next year. Well I look forward to the video then🤗 Thanx!
How do you treat the orchids just after the repot from normal orchid medium to leca in terms of watering and fertilizing, so how much and how often. Do you from the get go give then the amount of water as if they’ve always been in SH or do you gradually let them adapt?
I don't treat new conversions any differently, but then I don't tend to lose the old root system. If you find your old root systems die off frequently following conversion you can always follow wet dry cycles until new roots get down. But every time you adjust a watering schedule, the roots will adapt to that, then you're changing the watering setup again and increasing the chance of root die off, if any new roots got down and adapted to the wet/dry cycles you were giving. Roots don't adapt to media- they adapt to the water / air ratio, so every time you change that there is another adaptation stage that the roots will need to go through. Ideally just repot when new roots are about to get down so there is only one round of adaptation, but you can certainly play around with wet dry cycles in inorganic media if your environment allows it. For me, dry wicking media dessicates roots, thats not the case for everyone, growing in more humid environments for example.
The Orchid Room Hi Annabel, thank you very much for your extensive reply. I tend to go with the dry wet cycle because of the time I’ve started the repot, it is going to be colder in about a couple of weeks and I am not confident to go all the way at this moment and possibly loose any of the roots. It probably wasn’t the best time to do the repotting but most of my plants needed the repot now. I will keep a close eye to them individually and maybe adapt the watering regime. Thank you again🍀🙏🏼
Hi Mary! Around 1/3 to 1/2 of the pot, depending on pot size. Bigger is definitely better! I've talked about this quite a bit I know, but the smaller the reservoir the quicker it dries and the lower the wicking efficiency toward the top. This is due to the greater distance and overall loss of water as the pot gets higher, so the worse the dry layer. You can always tip water out of a deeper reservoir, you can't top up a smaller one though! Hope that helps!
Hi Annabel, was reading about S-Te™, "S-Te™ is a fired clay product with high porosity and a good CEC (cation exchange capacity)" This reminded me of something I read about while researching Koi Ponds. They basically use non clumping (does not break down/form mush) cat litter. Since non clumping (moler clay) cat litter is a fired clay product that is super absorbent. It is the CEC that triggered my memory. I have tried vermiculite and that turns to mush. It is used for Bonsai trees ua-cam.com/video/Rzf1YUCNSLc/v-deo.html . You can read more here. www.mankysanke.co.uk/html/anoxic_filtration.html Also you can see this does not breakdown/dissolve at the 3:20 mark. ua-cam.com/video/vbSv54F3xnE/v-deo.html
Hi Kennith! I did actually try this on my first media trials with SaniCat, the premise is that you look for a cat litter product that is pure Danish moler clay. I then compared this to horticultural moler on my last media trials. If you're interested to learn more I have put them both into a playlist on my channel, and linked the first test in the description on here with the SaniCat. Main issues with moler I have run into are the acidic pH and mould.
Media tests 1, Sanicat, LECA, Perlite, top layers: ua-cam.com/video/fEo-YOAGdi8/v-deo.html Media tests 2, S-Te, this small grade pumice, large pumice, lava and more: ua-cam.com/video/09Inrxr14tQ/v-deo.html Media test 3, Seramis, Horticultural moler : ua-cam.com/video/KMoHyyTnY0k/v-deo.html
No problem! I first tried the SaniCat as someone suggested they used it instead of Seramis. It and the Horticultural moler do seem to have different properties to seramis, and some of the orchids I put in went very yellow, I assumed a pH issue. I tried Pinguicula in it, since they love seramis but also shouldn't mind acidic pH, and they became very stunted. So I haven't really figured moler out yet. I'm thinking a pH or intrinsic salt issue. I also don't know why it moulds more than seramis 🤷♀️
@@TheOrchidRoom Thanks for that. IF you don't mind doing an experiment, you can try adding a tablespoon of baking soda to hot water to dissolve and try soaking the moler in that solution. That has a high pH and is used to neutralise acidity, perhaps for a day or 2, then rinse with hot water and retest the pH after soaking the moler in water again. www.britannica.com/topic/food-preservation/Fungi "Both yeasts and molds are able to grow in an acidic environment (pH less than 7). The pH range for yeast growth is 3.5 to 4.5 and for molds is 3.5 to 8.0."
The Orchid Room 😃🥰 I used to own turtles ... Twiga and Zico ... their tank was like a theme park with all sorts of fun things ... others had doll houses, i kitted out my turtle tank with fun things 🤣
Haha oh no, well now that you've said it I will just have to if I see one! I went back to the garden centre, for the first time since Covid, last week. They had a little Aspidogyne argentea I just had to have, wanted to order one online anyway when my ordering ban was lifted....but I resisted their paphs. I never seem to find zygos in supermarkets but the garden centre often has them! Will keep an eye out 🧐🙈
I don't flush in the way people think of as flushing as such- I alternate a pure water watering with my pump sprayer over the top of the medium every now and then or if I notice build up. Don't tend to get build up fertilising correctly, it's just if an orchid is still adapting or not growing as actively it can happen, so I lower nutrients in those cases.
No problem! The ideal would be taking to the sink and flushing through with RO, then topping nutrients back up. But that would be a bit difficult to manage correctly for me. So I let them drink their reservoirs near dry sometimes and then do the top of the media flushes to tackle any salts... there are ways around it 🙂
Very helpful video, thank you!
I found that all my Neofinetia Falcata did very well after i suspended th over my planted tank with a few roots dipped into the water. The roots which are in the water tend to look a bit bloated and a few root tips even rot off, however, the rest of their roots which are hanging in the air look wonderful and grow much better than before, and the leaves also show no sign of any lack of water. It's a zero maintenance way of ensuring my orchids always have enough water, since my tank water is topped up automatically, so i just have to pump the necessary water conditioner and fertilizer into the water daily
I watched your repotting video, can't imagine half a year has already passed. Time flies. Keep it up Annabel :)
This year has gone flying by hasn't it! Thank-you 💗 😊
As I am now holding my first Maxillaria in my hand looking for how yours is doing in SH in leca, it’s so great to have your experience readily when I need it, thanks again 👍🏼
Fun experiment as usual!
I'm often surprised that my opinions on new media change so dramatically over time, and things I thought wouldn't work are often the best 😆😆 It's fun to try new projects and find new options though! 🙂 I am glad you liked it too, Thankyou! 💗
The Orchid Room that’s exactly what makes experimenting so valuable! When we all plod along with the established way we might never realize that there’s a better one. I really appreciate your curiosity!
that was great. Kyodama is new to me but seems interesting. thx.
Thanks Norman 🙂
So I will need to see if I can find some bonsai media when I buy a Maxillaria tenaforia it appears to be the best. Maybe I could also try that on my Oncidium. Lots of info to take from thank you. Looking forward to seeing you trying this with a Zygo. Have a great day.
I got the small grade pumice by accident ( I wanted a medium size), and been using it for a bout two months now and love it! I put my variegated neofinetia and it seems very happy in there. I really like the pumice small grade as a media , however need more observation. I think thin root orchids really like these kind of media. I haven't used Kyodama and don't know it but it seems doing well for you. Thanks for sharing and happy growing.
I use seramis or pumice/ LECA mixes for Neos and they like that, so I can imagine they like small grade pumice 🙂
Lovely update Annabel 🤗
Thanks Ulla! 💗🙂
Quite informative
Oh hello beautiful Nelly Isler 👋🏻 🙋🏻♂️
She had mites so she's on the treatment table, think we are all clear now! All 3 of my Nellie's got spider mites, none of the milts did even though their leaves were touching. Think Nellie's are particularly susceptible!
Lovely update! I'd love to see a video on how you deal with these inorganic mixes when repotting, how you sort and clean them off when you have small grade medium mixed with large grade. Must be tricky to sort. Hugs from NYC 🤗
Hi! I just use a small metal sieve for small media, a large colander for large media🙂 I did a cleaning video here: ua-cam.com/video/XpN06knGa1I/v-deo.html
It's the same process, just with a smaller sieve! Hope that helps!
@@TheOrchidRoom nice, will check it out, thanks!!
Interesting experiment. Thanks for sharing. Would be interesting to see some experiment on kanuma and kiryu.
I'll look into them! I chose S-te, different Pumice sizes, Horticultural moler and Superlite black as a starting point since they seemed hard and durable, and I was a bit unsure about the other properties of the rest!
@@TheOrchidRoom Really appreciate your effort. I know Kamuna has been used for Habenaria and some asian cymbidiums. Not sure if it's suitable for other types. I'm testing kiryu in small grain myself, and I'm so surprised to see how much water they can hold. It's also supposed to be good for
mycorrhiza cultivation. Speaking of pumice, there is also a Japanese pumice called Hyuga. Compared with the regular pumice, it's slightly accidic, which should be more suitable for orchids.
Hi Annabel nice update 😘😘
Hi Steven! Thankyou! 🙂
@@TheOrchidRoom ur welcome Annabel any updates on the orchid seeds you was doing 😘
Loving these videos, hoping you will do more of them :)
Which inorganic medium so far would you say is your best contender for extremely fine toots and having no nutriants or minerals leeching?
Hi Annabel! Very interesting experiment and so successful, congratulations. I’ve transitioned my maxilaria ten. into semi hidro with leca for one month now. I am a bit worried cause the bulbs didn’t plump up so far still shriveled! Do have any advice? In the meantime I will give her more time to recover and adapt. Best wishes 🥂👍😘😘
Hi Marco! My tenuifoloa didn't skip a beat going into straight sh. Is your plant a good size? I've noticed small divisions I've taken for people stall for a very long time so that's why I ask. They produce new roots as the new growths mature, tunneling them down the stem, so it can take a while for newnroots to make it down to the media. They are very resilient and do great in SH, so I'm sure yours will recover! 🤞🙂
Hi Annabel, I have been missing your videos. I hope you are doing fine🙏🏼🍀.
Thankyou, that means alot! 💗 Just some life stuff at the moment, not been feeling like filming much or had much inspiration for new videos, but I've done a few bits that I'll hopefully be able to edit soon 🙂 Any ideas for fun videos you'd like to see to help me out of the rut? 😆
@The Orchid Room I know what it is like feeling uninspired even to do something you are passionate about. You have just moved to a new house and who knows what else is happening. Just take your time Annabel🍀. I might have an idea for a video, I bought 3 cymbidiums this year and keep them outside until they have to be inside before winter ( that is what I am told to get blooms next year). I want to repot them into leca SH. I think it might be to late for that. Do you have a cymbidium in leca and would you repot them now? And don’t feel obligated to make this video now please. I will probably not do any repotting at this point since I have been doing almost all of them (more than 90) the last 2 months.🥵.
This is so funny because one of the videos I have filmed waiting to edit was me bringing the cymbidiums over from the old house bare root, removing a few years worth of bugs, earwigs and spider mites from being outside, and repotting. They've been in leca for a few years living outdoors in my mini greenhouse, still don't have a permanent setup for them in the new house though, they're too big for inside and the wooden greenhouse isn't moved over yet. I'll get on with getting that video together! Personally I wouldn't repot the cymbs now unless they're making new growths because they are a horrific mess to repot from organic, they're usually super root bound when you get them home and repotting usually damages the old roots. I've taken to not removing the old media for some cymbs, depending how root bound they are, and just filling around with LECA. Obviously its ideal to get the broken down super constricted bark mulch from out of the roots, but their roots break so easily and they don't really care if you leave it in honestly, often they've practically fossilised/ pulverised the old medium with pressure from their root-bound-ness 😅
The Orchid Room Wow! I can’t believe it😃 what a coincidence. Thank you for the suggestion, I will put it in Leca SH without disturbing the roots until next year. Well I look forward to the video then🤗 Thanx!
How do you treat the orchids just after the repot from normal orchid medium to leca in terms of watering and fertilizing, so how much and how often. Do you from the get go give then the amount of water as if they’ve always been in SH or do you gradually let them adapt?
I don't treat new conversions any differently, but then I don't tend to lose the old root system. If you find your old root systems die off frequently following conversion you can always follow wet dry cycles until new roots get down. But every time you adjust a watering schedule, the roots will adapt to that, then you're changing the watering setup again and increasing the chance of root die off, if any new roots got down and adapted to the wet/dry cycles you were giving. Roots don't adapt to media- they adapt to the water / air ratio, so every time you change that there is another adaptation stage that the roots will need to go through. Ideally just repot when new roots are about to get down so there is only one round of adaptation, but you can certainly play around with wet dry cycles in inorganic media if your environment allows it. For me, dry wicking media dessicates roots, thats not the case for everyone, growing in more humid environments for example.
The Orchid Room Hi Annabel, thank you very much for your extensive reply. I tend to go with the dry wet cycle because of the time I’ve started the repot, it is going to be colder in about a couple of weeks and I am not confident to go all the way at this moment and possibly loose any of the roots. It probably wasn’t the best time to do the repotting but most of my plants needed the repot now. I will keep a close eye to them individually and maybe adapt the watering regime. Thank you again🍀🙏🏼
Hi Annabel. How large/deep is your water reservoir please? I've been using 1 inch reservoir but lately I've been thinking of using a deeper well.
Hi Mary! Around 1/3 to 1/2 of the pot, depending on pot size. Bigger is definitely better! I've talked about this quite a bit I know, but the smaller the reservoir the quicker it dries and the lower the wicking efficiency toward the top. This is due to the greater distance and overall loss of water as the pot gets higher, so the worse the dry layer. You can always tip water out of a deeper reservoir, you can't top up a smaller one though! Hope that helps!
@@TheOrchidRoomThanks. I guess my punny little reservoirs need need upgrading.
Hi Annabel, was reading about S-Te™, "S-Te™ is a fired clay product with high porosity and a good CEC (cation exchange capacity)" This reminded me of something I read about while researching Koi Ponds. They basically use non clumping (does not break down/form mush) cat litter. Since non clumping (moler clay) cat litter is a fired clay product that is super absorbent. It is the CEC that triggered my memory. I have tried vermiculite and that turns to mush. It is used for Bonsai trees ua-cam.com/video/Rzf1YUCNSLc/v-deo.html . You can read more here. www.mankysanke.co.uk/html/anoxic_filtration.html Also you can see this does not breakdown/dissolve at the 3:20 mark. ua-cam.com/video/vbSv54F3xnE/v-deo.html
Hi Kennith! I did actually try this on my first media trials with SaniCat, the premise is that you look for a cat litter product that is pure Danish moler clay. I then compared this to horticultural moler on my last media trials. If you're interested to learn more I have put them both into a playlist on my channel, and linked the first test in the description on here with the SaniCat. Main issues with moler I have run into are the acidic pH and mould.
Media tests 1, Sanicat, LECA, Perlite, top layers:
ua-cam.com/video/fEo-YOAGdi8/v-deo.html
Media tests 2, S-Te, this small grade pumice, large pumice, lava and more: ua-cam.com/video/09Inrxr14tQ/v-deo.html
Media test 3, Seramis, Horticultural moler :
ua-cam.com/video/KMoHyyTnY0k/v-deo.html
@@TheOrchidRoom Thank you for the links, I will watch both video. As always you are a treasure trove of information.
No problem! I first tried the SaniCat as someone suggested they used it instead of Seramis. It and the Horticultural moler do seem to have different properties to seramis, and some of the orchids I put in went very yellow, I assumed a pH issue. I tried Pinguicula in it, since they love seramis but also shouldn't mind acidic pH, and they became very stunted. So I haven't really figured moler out yet. I'm thinking a pH or intrinsic salt issue. I also don't know why it moulds more than seramis 🤷♀️
@@TheOrchidRoom Thanks for that. IF you don't mind doing an experiment, you can try adding a tablespoon of baking soda to hot water to dissolve and try soaking the moler in that solution. That has a high pH and is used to neutralise acidity, perhaps for a day or 2, then rinse with hot water and retest the pH after soaking the moler in water again.
www.britannica.com/topic/food-preservation/Fungi "Both yeasts and molds are able to grow in an acidic environment (pH less than 7). The pH range for yeast growth is 3.5 to 4.5 and for molds is 3.5 to 8.0."
Hello 🧜♀️🥰🌸
Heyyy! 💗🐢 (when I searched Ninja on my emoji screen, hoping for a blackbelt, a turtle came up instead. I thought he was cute!)
The Orchid Room 😃🥰 I used to own turtles ... Twiga and Zico ... their tank was like a theme park with all sorts of fun things ... others had doll houses, i kitted out my turtle tank with fun things 🤣
Oooh I love turtles 🐢💗🐢 They sound like they were very pampered turtles!
Do you think masdevallia would do well with kyodama?
Mine do well in Seramis, so I don't see why not, depending on the environment!
So you're going to buy a cheap Zygo from the grocery store and try it in the Kyodama? Your viewers want you to. Well, I do.
Haha oh no, well now that you've said it I will just have to if I see one! I went back to the garden centre, for the first time since Covid, last week. They had a little Aspidogyne argentea I just had to have, wanted to order one online anyway when my ordering ban was lifted....but I resisted their paphs. I never seem to find zygos in supermarkets but the garden centre often has them! Will keep an eye out 🧐🙈
How often do you flush your semi hydro ?
I don't flush in the way people think of as flushing as such- I alternate a pure water watering with my pump sprayer over the top of the medium every now and then or if I notice build up. Don't tend to get build up fertilising correctly, it's just if an orchid is still adapting or not growing as actively it can happen, so I lower nutrients in those cases.
The Orchid Room thank you very much !
No problem! The ideal would be taking to the sink and flushing through with RO, then topping nutrients back up. But that would be a bit difficult to manage correctly for me. So I let them drink their reservoirs near dry sometimes and then do the top of the media flushes to tackle any salts... there are ways around it 🙂