S/H w/CHC?

[Jared]

Hi all,

I recently discovered S/H and have repotted several of my orchids into Hydroton. I have some extra coconut husk chips and it occurred to me that they might work for S/H too. Has anyone tried using the S/H method, substituting CHC for LECA?

-Jared

[vcuchick]

I don't think it would be a good idea...for S/H, the cocoa chips would break down and also grow bacteria with the constant wet environment...the thing about the LECA is that it is completely inert and won't break down in water or grow "stuff." the main thing with growing S/H is the LECA and it can't be substituted...

check out Welcome to First Rays Orchids there's a lot of good advice and free info about S/H.

[delphiguy]

I have gotten my hands on a few small bags of hydroton about a month ago. so i
decided to give s/h a try, unfortunately, i ran out of it before i could repot all of my
chids. so i did is that i substituted it with diatomite, and so far so good. but i still
prefer hydroton as it gives a much cleaner look, as for the results, we'll see.

i dont think that coco chips would be a good idea as vcuchick has stated. the coco
chips would just rot and decay quickly with the constant wetness. I've heard you
can use lava rock or perlite or even broken clay pots.

[articuno75]

I have a couple of Neos that have been repotted into cocohusk. Thing is the stuff for these guys just dries out too fast after a good watering. I would have to water them everyday just to keep the moisture level at optimum. Well kind of hard to do when you have 60+ others to worry about. What I've been doing now for over a couple of months is mist water over them and then fill the tray that they are in with water. The cocohusk "wicks" the water up to the roots. So far so good and they seem to really like it. My Gekkeikan is doing fantastic from this and the roots are starting to come out of the pot from a growth spurt.

*Note I do let the tray go dry before I fill it again.

I am now trying this on a couple of Phals that I have.

[Jared]

Originally Posted by articuno75

I have a couple of Neos that have been repotted into cocohusk. Thing is the stuff for these guys just dries out too fast after a good watering. I would have to water them everyday just to keep the moisture level at optimum. Well kind of hard to do when you have 60+ others to worry about. What I've been doing now for over a couple of months is mist water over them and then fill the tray that they are in with water. The cocohusk "wicks" the water up to the roots. So far so good and they seem to really like it. My Gekkeikan is doing fantastic from this and the roots are starting to come out of the pot from a growth spurt.

*Note I do let the tray go dry before I fill it again.

I am now trying this on a couple of Phals that I have.

Thanks for the tip. I recently bought a big neglected cymbidium with withered, dehydrated looking backbulbs and weak looking leaves. I've since repotted it with CHC in a 14" ceramic pot. Maybe I'll try leaving the pot in a tray after watering. How deep do you think the water should be?

[articuno75]

I only let the water fill to where it covers the holes on the bottom (Phals). Since the Neos are in net pots, I fill til just enough covers the bottom. (just enough that the medium can suck up and not over saturate.

[Ray]

Jenny,

Be careful just "topping up" the reservoir. By doing that, you never flush the medium above it, so inevitably, it will become toxic with mineral buildup.

In the medium, there are two "types" of held water - that absorbed by the medium particles in what are commonly known as "micropores", and that held in the spaces between particles - "macropores" - by surface tension. We want the first and to avoid the second, as its the suffocating effect of the liquid blocking the macropores that kills the roots. (I have a more descriptive article on that at my website - ( Edited )

If you've chosen your medium particle size properly, blocking of the macroporosity is far less of an issue, so you can take advantage of that to use the "firehose" technique of watering to flush the medium.