Hey guys! Regarding the edit glitch you've told me about... I figured what it is.. In my project there is no red screen, but that 'like and sub' animation is the one glitching for sure, sorry! Will take care of it in future vids! You know how you update something and everything goes haywire? 🤣🤣🤣😭🤣🤣
Hi, Dani. Ray Barkalow here, the inventor of semi-hydro culture method. Much of what you stated in this video is EXACTLY what I have stated for decades. There is not "one perfect way" for everyone to grow orchids because their overall conditions are different. A few years ago I downsized and went from a warm greenhouse environment to windowsills and plants I had grown in S/H culture for years suffered after the move. (In the summer, they're out on my very hot, very humid deck, here in North Carolina, so it's not an issue.) For warm-growing plants, evaporative cooling from the moist LECA can be the biggest issue, especially in the winter when the humidity and temperature are lower. The roots simply get too cold. I believe you may have misinterpreted the dehydration issue, though. In the proper conditions (sufficient humidity) the wicking rate of LECA is faster than the evaporation rate, so the column stays moist all the way to the top. If the evaporation is faster, then the wicking cannot keep up. You may be correct that the plants weren't getting enough water, but that has nothing to do with the volume of water in the reservoir and is all about your conditions stopping the LECA from wicking well. Don't forget, all you have to do is water more often! By the way, I have never seen alkaline LECA. I am a ceramic engineer, so have been playing with clays and glasses a long time. Maybe I'm lucky, but all the brands I have tried were basically pH neutral. Your assessment that adjusting the pH of the solutions had no effect, because the rhizosphere pH is primarily controlled by the medium, the plant, and the microbes living in them. Applied solutions have very little impact. As to the sphagnum selection, when my phalaenopsis began suffering in S/H (my paphs and phrags still thrive growing that way), I switched them to sphagnum, as the moisture gradient and cooling was far less than with LECA. Unfortunately, in my summer environment, with the heavy watering I do, sphagnum decomposed rapidly, requiring replacement every 6 months. I experimented using Grodan rockwool Mini-Cubes as a substitute, but that compressed too much after a while, so became suffocating. Some use the cubes as a "top dress" over the LECA to slow evaporation, and that seems to work well. After more of my own experimentation, I have arrived at a blend of rockwool cubes and LECA, varying it a bit for each plant to be between 25% and 33% rockwool. I'm a few years in on that and it seems to work well.
The thing with Leca isn't necessarily that the Leca itself is alkaline, but that it causes the water to become alkaline after a period of soaking time. There was another RUclipsr mentioning this same issue as well. I forgot which one but it's a man who has a tutorial on repotting an oncidium twinkle in semi hydro. It's not in that same video, but he has another video talking about it and testing the water pH with different factors.
@@shastawolfamute2203 I think it must have something to do with the minerology of the clays used to produce the LECA. I used to import containerloads of a product sold as "PrimeAgra" that was neutral. After literally a year, sealed in a container of distilled water, the pH of the water was still 7.
Hi Ray, thanks for stopping by! 😊 Quite an honour! :D so regarding some of the issues I encounter, I don't know if I emphasised it in this video, but in previous ones I did. There might be a big difference in the composition of the LECA I find locally, as I know other people who had pH issues and others who did not. I am also thinking that this can also affect the wicking rate as well, so I'm sure that you might have experienced different results when it comes to this layering, or drying out. And yes we can always water more, but I personally get overwhelmed if I must water every 3 days or so, considering the number of orchids I have and the conditions in which I keep them. I wish I could be more liberal with the 'mess' and water splashing, but it's just not an option and I think many home growers feel this way, so I try to find ways to keep many orchids without much hassle. And yes this is also part of the reason the LECA setup didn't work out for me and my life style and possibilities. It was just more hassling than I imagined it would be. I think we are a bit opposites when it comes to watering, I'm trying to do as little watering as possible and be as economical as I can, since my tap water is pretty horrible so I use reverse osmosis water.I can see how sphagnum moss can be a nightmare if you tend to do more heavy watering! Just another way in which the setup needs to workout with the user! In the end I want to play with leca with aroids, I think they might be far less picky about all these issues that orchids raised and, if I'm a bit lucky, I might find some products from the USA to test out and see if they do the same pH party my leca does, I think that would be an interesting video to make :) Thanks so much for stopping by and for inventing semi hydro! Think many people are very grateful today :D 🧡
@@MissOrchidGirl Hi Dani - just jumping in here and to emphasize something Ray said that maybe was missed: "Your assessment that adjusting the pH of the solutions had no effect, because the rhizosphere pH is primarily controlled by the medium, the plant, and the microbes living in them. Applied solutions have very little impact." Have you considered the possibility that your attempt to maintain particular pH levels of the solution before watering with it and after it's in the reservoir may actually not be necessary and may not actually be the cause of the problems you cite? That's certainly what many semi-hydro growers find in practice (not just orchids but all kinds of houseplants). From watching many of your videos, including this one, I can't help but get the sense that there are many assumptions being made about the role the pH of your solution plays in the health of the plant and its growth potential. It's quite possible other factors are at play causing those issues you were seeing. Final note: With your Thai con in leca, if you find that roots growing into the reservoir end up rotting down there, your best bet is to switch it to a wick set up. The air space created between the bottom of the inner pot and top of the reservoir actually helps reservoir roots live long term in the reservoir without rotting. Many people have noted problems with submerged set ups (where the leca shares space with the reservoir) and that's particularly true with monsteras and hoyas. But those problems don't seem to happen with wick set ups. I can definitely credit you for the path I took in growing semi-hydroponically in wick set ups. All of my 300+ houseplants and orchids are semi-hydro, in either leca, pumice, or DIY pon, and maybe 95% of them are in wick set ups. I love it so thank you for the inspiration and information!!
Hi, Ray. Would you mind sharing with me the brand of Leca you use? I’m having the same issue as Dani- the water in my reservoir starts off neutral but even after only 24 hours the PH starts climbing. Is there a way to keep the water in Leca neutral? I’ve tried adding PH down prior to adding water to the Leca but the PH still climbs. Additionally, Dani mentioned that root tips would burn at the top layer due to the evaporative effect of the leca. You probably already know this, but I’m sharing for others using leca for their orchids. I followed advice from Annabelle from The Orchid Room channel with regard to the dry top layer: adding a layer of small river rocks on top of the leca prevents the leca from drying out up top so the roots don’t desiccate. This works perfectly in my semi tropical environment!
North Florida here. I tried so hard to maintain my orchids in sphagnum but no matter how light and airy I made it, no matter how many holes I drilled into my pots- orchid roots would always rot! Even with very minimal watering. Then I tried fir bark and orchids would dry out every 3 days and I couldn’t keep up with the watering schedule. So, I resorted to Leca in semi hydro- which seems to work best in my environment. Honestly, some orchids are thriving and some are iffy at best. I soooo wanted to be able to grow in sphagnum but the humidity in my house is always 50-65% depending on the day. Now hearing that orchids might not grow to their full potential is a little disheartening 😔 But I do realize environment plays a huge part in the orchid hobby. Get a kick out of seeing new flower spikes though!
Central Florida here. Yeah, me too. I've been struggling with getting orchids to thrive with conventional types of orchid mixes, but just recently have discovered Floridians using only inorganic mixes. So I'm assembling a mix of leca, larger bits of perlite and charcoal. As one grower pointed out repotting is easier since its not necessary to disturb the roots pulling out decaying organic matter. So off to the next experiment.
@@reefhugger100 - I grow about 10% of my orchids (a few oncidiums and cattleyas) in just lava rock. They are doing well- but keeping up with the watering is a little challenging sometimes! I’m of the same opinion- inorganic media seems to work better for Florida.
It takes lots of courage to make content like this.. it's like the budha first teaching (don't follow me blindly,think yourself) I think it goes well with orchids. Hats off to logical reasoning and thinking. Respect
Im having my first bloom since purchasing my phal 4 years ago...moved from MD to FL in the middle. I admit that I dont have a clue as to what Im doing, but right now, she has a full spike of flowers, and I'm so happy! Oh...she is in bark.
Thanks for the explanation video. I never had success with leca and semihydro. As an addition to other materials, sure, it works. Currently using bark with moss in different ratio. This combo works very well for me. Some orchids (seedlings, oncidium type) are potted in full moss and are also doing great.
I live in a hot, dry low desert and struggle to control humidity for my typical plants. The only orchids i have are two tiny mini phalaenopsis orchids. I don't think they're even in 3 inch pots. I was having issues with the orchids drying out in 1 day when they were in bark, 1-2 days in bark with a few coconut husk chips for moisture. The orchid potting mix that I bought with the orchids was only bark, no moss or other moisture retaining substances. I watched one of your beginner orchid videos yesterday and decided to remove the coconut husk chips and replace that with long fiber sphagnum moss. I left them out of the cover pot overnight and the aerial roots are showing signs of hydration and life for the first time since I bought them a few weeks ago. The one surviving long, coiled root is a bright, happy green as well. I'm going to continue keeping them on the lid of my humidifier so they're getting the most humidity I have available. The outdoor humidity rust is only 11% so I have to refill the humidifier twice a day in order to maintain 40-50%. We'll see if the orchids survive. My other typical houseplants seem to be doing well.
I agree with you, there is no ideal set up, just one that works with you, your watering habits, whether you’re an over or under waterer, your climate and environment and your orchids. I have been using Seramis for more than 10 years, don’t use ventilation holes or any of the stuff that had been deemed essential for orchids and it works out for me. Prior to that I kept loosing orchids in the recommended bark and sphagnum moss setups for years. I don’t live in an oven, just a temperate west European climate, and this is what works best for me. I started following your channel because you were the only one I had ever seen using Seramis with orchids, which I thought was really interesting. Since then I have stayed watching because to me you were by comparison the most knowledgeable orchid RUclipsr with the most wide range of interesting videos. I have learned a lot form you over the years, thanks for sharing ❤
I'm trying leca now with my houseplants and herbs not orchids. I have borrowed you spagmoss method and I absolutely love it. We don't have a lot of humidity where I am and it has helped tremendously. Thank you 😊
Thank you Danny for sharing your knowledge and your practical experience with orchids. The Ph and the salt buildup over time, specially on the surface and near the root base is the problem with LECA. Ok, I got it now. It is hard to give it up, it would be so easy, if it just could work. Nothing is better than reality, even if I don’t like it, for the moment.
it's lovely to see you after hearing you for some years :) another youtuber "paul the plant parent" uses acrylic yarn as his medium and i found it interesting since like sphagnum moss yarn is soft and fluffy; could be fun to try and compare
Wow best info to date. I have switched more to Spagnum moss . Upon your recommendations. Will see. I accidentally left my Phals out in the hot sun.theyre still recuperating.
Leca is my go to orchid rehab substrate. I use it a lot when I rescue dying orchids from grocery stores. Then after they grow good roots in 6 months to a year I move them to bark or sphagnum.
Central Florida here. I'm still using half bark and half moss. For the last few years that has been working great for me. I'm going to slowly move to full moss on some of them and see if there is any difference. Thanks for all your videos and knowledge.
I encountered many of the same moisture issues, especially with finer-rooted orchids and micro orchids. I switched to fine lava rock (1-2 cm) and pumice, and kept the semi-hydro pots I DIY'd. It is just so much better in every way -- these rocks don't have the desiccant effect of dry LECA, they hold onto moisture much longer, and the wicking performance is much better. This mix is also heavier, which keeps top-heavy canes in place when first transitioning them. I also find that the oxygen needs of roots is possibly over-exaggerated. The air pockets in my new finer media is much smaller than in LECA, but still, orchid roots seek the very bottoms of the pots. I think we underestimate the ability of orchids to regulate oxygen levels in their roots.
I too have not had success with LECA but, as you say, some people do. I will stick to bark, as I also don't have much luck with moss as I tend to overwater. Many thanks for your videos 💖
@@heather1925 I wrote that about Leca a year ago and have since gone back to using leca, which is great for sick orchids to grow new roots. I'm in Florida 😎
Sphagnum moss has been doing wonders for me too. I trust I observe plants well enough not to overwater (overcame that phase) and it has been resulting in roots enjoying growing in it.
That’s a wonderful success! I tried moss but it’s not dry enough where I am and it’s humid. It never dried out. I just use plain old bark and it works ok but my orchids aren’t blooming very well. So many reason they aren’t blooming i get a little frustrated. But I still love my orchids. If they bloom I’m happy if they don’t I try again next year. Your orchids are always so beautiful I always look forward to seeing the blooms.
LECA works super well for me. I use tall pots that don't flare at the top. I seal the inside with boiled linseed oil and let it dry. This stops evaporation through the sides. I cover most but not all of the top of the LECA with the fine mounding moss you find in the woods. It drains well but maintains humidity and watering twice a week is enough and only with 1/2 cup of water each time. Works great for me in all seasons. No wicking up from the bottom or water in the bottom. It just drains through.
Hi Dani, in hydroponics the acidity of the medium is regulated by the ratio of nitrogen forms NH4:NO3. Plants prefer to use nitrogen in the form of NH4, and the acidity increases (pH decreases). If there are no NH4 ions in your fertilizer solution, the acidity will drop (pH will increase), even with a neutral substrate. Therefore, ammonium nitrate is necessarily added to the solution as a source of NH4, approximately 1/10 (must be selected experimentally, depending on the plant) of the total amount of nitrogen. When the pH increases, the iron contained in the solution ceases to be absorbed; this is the main problem of high pH. It is also preferable to use more stable iron chelates, for example DTPA instead of EDTA, since up to pH 7.5 iron will not become insoluble.
This is the answer! My normal white phal yukidian had 25+ blooms last year I moved to LECA it seems to grow well but now that it's time to bloom there's only 6 flowers and the spike stopped growing. I won't shift back because I'm a university student and I can leave it during the 2 months vacation without watering hehe.
I just started a phalaenopsis into seni hydro and so far i havent had an issue. That being said, its only been less than a month and i havent gone to actually fertilizing it yet, and i live in inland southern california, where we have an oven in the summer and occassionally snow in the winter, so im definitely going to keep the setup and see how it goes before i go back to bark for it.
Hi Dani, I am a pharmacist by profession with majors in chemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry. I will try to make the science as simple as possible. I was curious about "my leca is alkaline". Technically this shouldn't be the case so for the last few months I have been doing experiments. Indeed the hydroponic solution becomes alkaline in the mid 8 range and this happens within 24 hours. I started forcing the pH down using 2% citric acid solution and there were some very interesting results. I saw black debris accumulating in the solution and a strong smell of hydrogen sulphide. Hydrogen sulphide is what use to make stink bombs. This raised my curiosity. So what is going on here? I used clear containers for the hydroponic solution and the orchid pot sat in that. Algae formed on the leca. It became very clear that when I adjusted the pH down to 4.5 using citric acid the algae didn't like it and started dying. I am sure that the breakdown of the algae is causing hydrogen sulphide to be produced. Lets look at what algae is doing. Algae grows rapidly in light. It needs CO2 to grow. CO2 is pulled out of the solution. CO2 in solution forms carbonic acid and reduces the pH. By removing the CO2 algae is raising the pH. In order to halt algae growth you need to remove white light so algae doesn't grow. I taped the containers in black tape and now have to only adjust the pH every 3 or 4 days. In short leca isn't the problem. Algae is the problem.2%
Hi! That is a great experiment! I’ll pick your brain a bit more though, you see.. I was using opaque pots for my semi hydro pots in order to avoid algae and cyanobacteria from forming. And the leca was still raising the ph in the reservoir, even without the algae. I’d love it if you’d have time to trial it with opaque pots as well. That would be very interesting to see the results! Thanks for your insights! 🧡 also, I always get cyanobacteria forming on wet sphagnum moss, hence why I use opaque pots and bark top layers. Any way I could prevent it from forming other than restricting light, nutrients and water? 🤔
@@MissOrchidGirl Some technical information: the white visible radio spectrum is a range of colours as seen in a rainbow. Chlorophyll uses the blue and red ends of the spectrum for photosynthesis. You can use a selective filter of yellow so that the other bands in spectrum don't penetrate or use black to exclude all light. Cyanobacteria also photosynthesise and research papers suggest they use the same range as chlorophyll so a yellow filter may work. I haven't used totally enclosed containers so there is still some light penetration. Opacity will not affect the wavelength of the light as it merely scatters light. I continue my research as it very fascinating. I only have a few phalaenopsis plants. 2 are in leca and doing well and a third in bark/moss. The latter was badly treated in the nursery and still bears the scars but has just dropped her last flowers after starting in May '23. Love your vlogs and have learnt so much. Thank you for all the work and information you put out there.
Expanded clay, yes its a hydroponic medium meaning it can handle regular water, because its well aerated, on the downside it has a sharp dry off curve. If Im not mistaken most orchids dont like regular water. Something like bark works because when wet properly it retains its moisture as reserves which create humidity around the roots and the roots can drink when needed. Cruahed clay mixed with other mediums is pretty good for plants that like regular watering
Thank you! As someone who’s been a part of (off and on) with the Las Vegas orchid society, since 2004, you gave me the reason for bark on top I’ve needed! Getting bark asap! Great content! Keep up the great work! 💚🌸🌼🪻
Based on info you discussed in your earlier videos I decided to run two wicks up through the Leca to the top of the pot. As you said it kept them alive and they looked good, but I too felt that they did not thrive. I changed my potting medium.
Maybe I'm old fashoned because I never tried other mediums than pine bark for orchids because it worked most the time for me. The pH from Leca seemed always unlogical to use for my orchids. What i like to try now is small kork chips for some of my plants who wants extra portion of air at the roots- it holds no water but fill only space. Sphagnum is very important for many things, love it! I mix coconut humus with very fine pine bark for Odontoglossum and other fine roots. Thank you for this video! ❤
I just reported two of my orchids in Leca (just learned about what it is a week ago). I mixed Leca and bark since Leca is expensive. I used the upside down soda bottle set up. We shall see.
It is also a personal preference of things and also you have to be very situational when changing your mind interms of your plants conditions/environment and such
Hi Danny… gr8 video… I often wondered why you went 100% to Leica and did not have any “controls”… maybe I saw a couple of videos where you took similar/same orchid varieties and made comparisons… but comparing growing mediums…anyway all good now! Congratulations…
As always you have given us a very interesting video. I have always kept my orchids in bark, however I would like to try one in just moss and one in both moss and bark I just really want to see how they grow, Thank you Dani.
Thank you so much for sharing, i really loved your detailed explanations. Ive always thought of leca just making sense with orchids but seemingly its not the best. For me just regular bark works pretty well, i'm living in germany in a pretty mixed climate but summers are pretty medium hot around here, no more than like 3 weeks above 30 °C.
The medium that's worked best for me over the years is broken terra cotta chips, about 1/2" (1 cm) in size. Much smaller and the roots have trouble penetrating as they grow. I put them in a terra cotta pot and water from the drip saucer below. You can watch the pot turning darker as the water wicks its way up toward the top, which tells you exactly how much water is getting into the roots. The roots themselves never see water directly, just water vapor evaporating out of the chips, so rotting is never a problem. Leca in my experience doesn't do the same thing at all. You can soak the pellets for hours but if you break one open you can see it's like a glassy ceramic in there, it doesn't seem to absorb any amount of water at all. My terra cotta pot with chips does so well that the neighboring orchids sneak their aerial roots over and wrap themselves around the pot so that they can enjoy the moisture too!
I am new to orchids (about 1 1/2yrs) , and am going to be trying Leca for the first time this spring on my phals, 1 dendrobium, 1 cattleya. I have tried bark (too dry), moss (too wet) and a combo of the two (dry on top, a lot of mould in the pot). My main issue is the swings in temp I think for my environment- it's a 25-30°c summer, and a very cold place in winter (I keep the room above 14°c in winter with heating). I have a humidifier on regularly, just to keep the humidity in the 60-70 (as I have a very dry environment). I'm hoping that with your experience, and also Danni and The Orchid rooms experience I might have a solution! Leca on the bottom, moss on the top. I will pick how much moss dependent on the species, but I hope this helps find a solution to my awkward environment! If anyone else has tried this solution please let me know your experience?! I can't seem to find much talk about this combo on the web. 😊
This was something I had wondered about, I’ve been watching a lot of your videos since I started collecting orchids last year (I’m a newbie and it’s SO exciting, gosh I love these little plants so much they have saved my sanity). I noticed you had changed from a semi hydro set up , and I was curious as to why. Leca seems initially to have so many pros. I was tempted to move all of my 170 ish houseplants over to it in one swoop. I thought it might get rid of those pesky fungus gnats. But it did occur to me that it’s a very heavy load on you , to always make sure to be providing the nutrients needed. Life gets in the way sometimes & I definitely do forget to feed my plants on occasion , I feel like organic set ups are probably more forgiving there. I am a total newbie to orchids though so I am not speaking from experience in that respect. I’ve definitely found leca is a great addition to my potting mixes for aroids and my African violets. But I think I’m probably too lazy to try full semi hydro with leca 🤣 ps your cattleyas are absolute beauties
I've had years of success with LECA and semi-hydro until recently. It used to keep me from overwatering. IDK why but my stuff isn't thriving anymore. I'm moving my orchids back into bark.
Interesting. I put 2 healthy and productive Phals in nothing but New Zealand sphagnum moss and it gave them root rot within 2 weeks. I lost them both so I went back to coconut husk/ Repot me blend. Not thrilled with these results either- roots seem dehydrated often. I’m in the kKansas City area so temps and humidity are variable.
Hi from OZ! Just wondering if you were bleaching your lecca to sterilise it? Or just plain boiling it? Am not a lecca fan either - bleaching lecca will surely raise its pH even with long soaks of plain h20 afterward.
i put all of my plants into leca around half a year ago and i have so mixed feelings. some of my plants like monstera adansonii or philodendron burlemarx variegata loves leca and all of my plants grow BUT... i encounter SO much root rot, no matter what i do. i use hydro fertilizer, i ec and ph balance, i have good airflow, i keep temps in check... it gets so annoying to a point i have to trim back dead roots every 2 weeks or so so keepo the plants healthy. especially the roots that grow into the reservoir allways rot away. BUT i think there must be a way to resolve that issue, and i m sure i can find out a way. the main issue however i m having with leca right now is maintenance and how freaking time consuming it is. with a chunky aroid mix, you just store it in a box, want to pot a new plant, grab some, put it in, some water over it done. i cant do that with leca. leca even tho the concept is more simple, requires so many more steps, brainwork, equipment and money that i spend like 2-3 times as much time as i had with soil. i need to prepare leca, rinse it, cook it, soak it ph balance it... so i can pot up a plant in a couple days. you constantly have to measure and mix nutrients and fertilizers and i have so many bottles around the house of stuff to buy, and additives and whatnot, you need so many more pots and so much more expensive pots aswell. with soil, i ll just go to the local gardencenter and buy lets say a 15cm pot from elho for like 99cents, put a saucer below for 30 cents and call it a day. With leca, i need new pots, preferably clear ones, i need to put extra holes into them and prepare the pots, i then need decorative cachepots for... ALL OF THEM as a reservoir and those pots are so expensive and such a limiting factor. combined with how fast i need to repot in leca, i hit a point where i need to repot but i cant because i dont have any cachepots and most of the cachepots i have dont 100% fit in size either. and oh boy... not gonna lie, i hate flushing and watering them so much. since they all sit in decorative cachepots, i have to take out every single plant one by one out of the pot to check the reservoir, the run all plants into the bathroom one by one and emptying it and flushing it and then rewater them and if you have a lot of plants next to each other you have to basicly pull put all plants. comparing this to just put some water over your plants until you see it coming out at the bottom and then forget about for a week or so... its insane how much more work leca workflow is. oh and you need to buy this and this and this. and another bottle. and then in case you use mosspoles and you take a cutting, those cuttings are basicly useless because their roots have moss all over and rot in leca anyways. i dont HATE leca. in fact i still like the idea, but i intitially started with leca because i thought its easier and it will save me time... it does not, it requires way more time and attention than soil does and it gets so technicly and overwhelming and it makes me consider going back to soil again because i genuinely miss those easy times, where you just bought a plant and you dont have to convert it or anything and you just put in some soilmix and be done.
Hi, charcoal retains virtually no water, so it would be a nightmare for me to water. There is no such thing as the best media, no matter who swears by it, could be the head of the AOS it means nothing. No one knows my, yours, others environment, so no one can say use this cos its the best, that’s selfish and ignorant. Know what I mean? :)) use what works for you and don’t tell others you know nothing about use it too cos its the best and nothing else is.. 👍
Hi Danny, I am sorry that LECA didn't work out for you. I have the majority of my Hoyas in LECA and a few aroids, and they are all doing well in my environment. I am experimenting with a few mini orchids in Pon now with smooth pebbles on top and so far, so good. I was wondering if you could update us on your progress cool growers. the Miltonia, Miltoniopsis and I believe you had a Dracula orchid, too. Thank you and happy growing!
Hi Dani, I would like to know when you use LECA what is the MSU dosage you use for them? I am using LECA in self watering pots but I don't know if I use the correct amount of MSU for them. Thanks
Hey you! First off I want to thank you! I went from knowing zero about orchids, to watching many of your videos in order to save very sick orchids in my grandfather’s house. I actually got 6 really healthy(some had no hope😢) however I am stumped at why one has a flower spike that is frozen in time and doesnt advance ( she is stunningly healthy) and why others dont want to grow a flower spike. Am I missing something? I have followed your instructions on where to look on an old flower spike in order to make the cut over a notch where a new one might grow under the papery lip that protects them.. also I see under the 3d leaf layer a little bud wanting to grow and possibly become a flower spike.. it has been about 3 months though and maybe Im impatient🤣
I wouldn’t use leca for the ph reason. I have a home brew solution. It’s basically the minerals from pon but in the size of leca balls. Since I bought the ph neutral minerals myself they aren’t fertilised and I have full control over the ec value and ph. The parts are lava rock, zeolite, and pumice thoroughly washed. You can use this for all sorts of plants. My rule of thumb is the bigger the roots the coarser your mix should be and vice versa.
I did put some rescue miltoniopsis in leca and spagnum. Seems the plants were inoculated with some fungus from the old media but it flurished in the leca. Does anyone else have issues with leca and this white fungus?
Hey! For your next myths vs truths or Q&A i just wondered - can fusarium be transferred through a cut flowerspike? Say ive used my pruners to cut into the rizome of an infected orchid - and then i cut a flowerspike on a different orchid with the same pruner (not recommended.. i know you should always desinfect), will it then infect that orchid? Im just a little scared bec i have some orchids with fusarium and though i do disinfect my tools, i just feel paranoid that maybe its not 100% desinfected u know lol
I put my orchids into LECA in self watering pots when I lived here n South Africa and my orchids did so well. I moved to Israel and have had no success with LECA. The orchids that are doing well are still in the bark from the store!
It looks to me that the Lecca was absorbing more nutrients than the roots or the roots were competing for nutrition with the Lecca. With the high ph the roots stopped getting the nutrients they need and the orchids stall.
Hey guys! Regarding the edit glitch you've told me about... I figured what it is.. In my project there is no red screen, but that 'like and sub' animation is the one glitching for sure, sorry! Will take care of it in future vids! You know how you update something and everything goes haywire? 🤣🤣🤣😭🤣🤣
Hi, Dani. Ray Barkalow here, the inventor of semi-hydro culture method. Much of what you stated in this video is EXACTLY what I have stated for decades. There is not "one perfect way" for everyone to grow orchids because their overall conditions are different. A few years ago I downsized and went from a warm greenhouse environment to windowsills and plants I had grown in S/H culture for years suffered after the move. (In the summer, they're out on my very hot, very humid deck, here in North Carolina, so it's not an issue.)
For warm-growing plants, evaporative cooling from the moist LECA can be the biggest issue, especially in the winter when the humidity and temperature are lower. The roots simply get too cold.
I believe you may have misinterpreted the dehydration issue, though. In the proper conditions (sufficient humidity) the wicking rate of LECA is faster than the evaporation rate, so the column stays moist all the way to the top. If the evaporation is faster, then the wicking cannot keep up. You may be correct that the plants weren't getting enough water, but that has nothing to do with the volume of water in the reservoir and is all about your conditions stopping the LECA from wicking well. Don't forget, all you have to do is water more often!
By the way, I have never seen alkaline LECA. I am a ceramic engineer, so have been playing with clays and glasses a long time. Maybe I'm lucky, but all the brands I have tried were basically pH neutral. Your assessment that adjusting the pH of the solutions had no effect, because the rhizosphere pH is primarily controlled by the medium, the plant, and the microbes living in them. Applied solutions have very little impact.
As to the sphagnum selection, when my phalaenopsis began suffering in S/H (my paphs and phrags still thrive growing that way), I switched them to sphagnum, as the moisture gradient and cooling was far less than with LECA. Unfortunately, in my summer environment, with the heavy watering I do, sphagnum decomposed rapidly, requiring replacement every 6 months. I experimented using Grodan rockwool Mini-Cubes as a substitute, but that compressed too much after a while, so became suffocating. Some use the cubes as a "top dress" over the LECA to slow evaporation, and that seems to work well. After more of my own experimentation, I have arrived at a blend of rockwool cubes and LECA, varying it a bit for each plant to be between 25% and 33% rockwool. I'm a few years in on that and it seems to work well.
The thing with Leca isn't necessarily that the Leca itself is alkaline, but that it causes the water to become alkaline after a period of soaking time. There was another RUclipsr mentioning this same issue as well. I forgot which one but it's a man who has a tutorial on repotting an oncidium twinkle in semi hydro. It's not in that same video, but he has another video talking about it and testing the water pH with different factors.
@@shastawolfamute2203 I think it must have something to do with the minerology of the clays used to produce the LECA. I used to import containerloads of a product sold as "PrimeAgra" that was neutral. After literally a year, sealed in a container of distilled water, the pH of the water was still 7.
Hi Ray, thanks for stopping by! 😊 Quite an honour! :D so regarding some of the issues I encounter, I don't know if I emphasised it in this video, but in previous ones I did. There might be a big difference in the composition of the LECA I find locally, as I know other people who had pH issues and others who did not. I am also thinking that this can also affect the wicking rate as well, so I'm sure that you might have experienced different results when it comes to this layering, or drying out. And yes we can always water more, but I personally get overwhelmed if I must water every 3 days or so, considering the number of orchids I have and the conditions in which I keep them.
I wish I could be more liberal with the 'mess' and water splashing, but it's just not an option and I think many home growers feel this way, so I try to find ways to keep many orchids without much hassle. And yes this is also part of the reason the LECA setup didn't work out for me and my life style and possibilities. It was just more hassling than I imagined it would be.
I think we are a bit opposites when it comes to watering, I'm trying to do as little watering as possible and be as economical as I can, since my tap water is pretty horrible so I use reverse osmosis water.I can see how sphagnum moss can be a nightmare if you tend to do more heavy watering! Just another way in which the setup needs to workout with the user!
In the end I want to play with leca with aroids, I think they might be far less picky about all these issues that orchids raised and, if I'm a bit lucky, I might find some products from the USA to test out and see if they do the same pH party my leca does, I think that would be an interesting video to make :)
Thanks so much for stopping by and for inventing semi hydro! Think many people are very grateful today :D 🧡
@@MissOrchidGirl Hi Dani - just jumping in here and to emphasize something Ray said that maybe was missed: "Your assessment that adjusting the pH of the solutions had no effect, because the rhizosphere pH is primarily controlled by the medium, the plant, and the microbes living in them. Applied solutions have very little impact." Have you considered the possibility that your attempt to maintain particular pH levels of the solution before watering with it and after it's in the reservoir may actually not be necessary and may not actually be the cause of the problems you cite? That's certainly what many semi-hydro growers find in practice (not just orchids but all kinds of houseplants). From watching many of your videos, including this one, I can't help but get the sense that there are many assumptions being made about the role the pH of your solution plays in the health of the plant and its growth potential. It's quite possible other factors are at play causing those issues you were seeing. Final note: With your Thai con in leca, if you find that roots growing into the reservoir end up rotting down there, your best bet is to switch it to a wick set up. The air space created between the bottom of the inner pot and top of the reservoir actually helps reservoir roots live long term in the reservoir without rotting. Many people have noted problems with submerged set ups (where the leca shares space with the reservoir) and that's particularly true with monsteras and hoyas. But those problems don't seem to happen with wick set ups. I can definitely credit you for the path I took in growing semi-hydroponically in wick set ups. All of my 300+ houseplants and orchids are semi-hydro, in either leca, pumice, or DIY pon, and maybe 95% of them are in wick set ups. I love it so thank you for the inspiration and information!!
Hi, Ray. Would you mind sharing with me the brand of Leca you use? I’m having the same issue as Dani- the water in my reservoir starts off neutral but even after only 24 hours the PH starts climbing. Is there a way to keep the water in Leca neutral? I’ve tried adding PH down prior to adding water to the Leca but the PH still climbs. Additionally, Dani mentioned that root tips would burn at the top layer due to the evaporative effect of the leca. You probably already know this, but I’m sharing for others using leca for their orchids. I followed advice from Annabelle from The Orchid Room channel with regard to the dry top layer: adding a layer of small river rocks on top of the leca prevents the leca from drying out up top so the roots don’t desiccate. This works perfectly in my semi tropical environment!
North Florida here. I tried so hard to maintain my orchids in sphagnum but no matter how light and airy I made it, no matter how many holes I drilled into my pots- orchid roots would always rot! Even with very minimal watering. Then I tried fir bark and orchids would dry out every 3 days and I couldn’t keep up with the watering schedule. So, I resorted to Leca in semi hydro- which seems to work best in my environment. Honestly, some orchids are thriving and some are iffy at best. I soooo wanted to be able to grow in sphagnum but the humidity in my house is always 50-65% depending on the day. Now hearing that orchids might not grow to their full potential is a little disheartening 😔 But I do realize environment plays a huge part in the orchid hobby. Get a kick out of seeing new flower spikes though!
Hi ! North FL here too and same problem !
I think the point of the video is that it didn't provide full potential *for her* but for you, maybe it's the best thing.
@@kimberlydrennon4982 - you’re right. I need to focus on my environment and stick with what provides the best results for my grow method. 😊
Central Florida here. Yeah, me too. I've been struggling with getting orchids to thrive with conventional types of orchid mixes, but just recently have discovered Floridians using only inorganic mixes. So I'm assembling a mix of leca, larger bits of perlite and charcoal. As one grower pointed out repotting is easier since its not necessary to disturb the roots pulling out decaying organic matter. So off to the next experiment.
@@reefhugger100 - I grow about 10% of my orchids (a few oncidiums and cattleyas) in just lava rock. They are doing well- but keeping up with the watering is a little challenging sometimes! I’m of the same opinion- inorganic media seems to work better for Florida.
It takes lots of courage to make content like this.. it's like the budha first teaching (don't follow me blindly,think yourself)
I think it goes well with orchids.
Hats off to logical reasoning and thinking. Respect
Im having my first bloom since purchasing my phal 4 years ago...moved from MD to FL in the middle. I admit that I dont have a clue as to what Im doing, but right now, she has a full spike of flowers, and I'm so happy! Oh...she is in bark.
If anyone has extra Leca I found the best use for it is in humidity trays. The evaporation rate is about 20% more than using stones.
Thanks for the explanation video.
I never had success with leca and semihydro. As an addition to other materials, sure, it works. Currently using bark with moss in different ratio. This combo works very well for me. Some orchids (seedlings, oncidium type) are potted in full moss and are also doing great.
I live in a hot, dry low desert and struggle to control humidity for my typical plants. The only orchids i have are two tiny mini phalaenopsis orchids. I don't think they're even in 3 inch pots. I was having issues with the orchids drying out in 1 day when they were in bark, 1-2 days in bark with a few coconut husk chips for moisture. The orchid potting mix that I bought with the orchids was only bark, no moss or other moisture retaining substances. I watched one of your beginner orchid videos yesterday and decided to remove the coconut husk chips and replace that with long fiber sphagnum moss. I left them out of the cover pot overnight and the aerial roots are showing signs of hydration and life for the first time since I bought them a few weeks ago. The one surviving long, coiled root is a bright, happy green as well. I'm going to continue keeping them on the lid of my humidifier so they're getting the most humidity I have available. The outdoor humidity rust is only 11% so I have to refill the humidifier twice a day in order to maintain 40-50%. We'll see if the orchids survive. My other typical houseplants seem to be doing well.
I agree with you, there is no ideal set up, just one that works with you, your watering habits, whether you’re an over or under waterer, your climate and environment and your orchids. I have been using Seramis for more than 10 years, don’t use ventilation holes or any of the stuff that had been deemed essential for orchids and it works out for me. Prior to that I kept loosing orchids in the recommended bark and sphagnum moss setups for years. I don’t live in an oven, just a temperate west European climate, and this is what works best for me. I started following your channel because you were the only one I had ever seen using Seramis with orchids, which I thought was really interesting. Since then I have stayed watching because to me you were by comparison the most knowledgeable orchid RUclipsr with the most wide range of interesting videos. I have learned a lot form you over the years, thanks for sharing ❤
I'm trying leca now with my houseplants and herbs not orchids. I have borrowed you spagmoss method and I absolutely love it. We don't have a lot of humidity where I am and it has helped tremendously. Thank you 😊
Thank you Danny for sharing your knowledge and your practical experience with orchids. The Ph and the salt buildup over time, specially on the surface and near the root base is the problem with LECA. Ok, I got it now. It is hard to give it up, it would be so easy, if it just could work.
Nothing is better than reality, even if I don’t like it, for the moment.
it's lovely to see you after hearing you for some years :) another youtuber "paul the plant parent" uses acrylic yarn as his medium and i found it interesting since like sphagnum moss yarn is soft and fluffy; could be fun to try and compare
Wow best info to date. I have switched more to Spagnum moss . Upon your recommendations. Will see. I accidentally left my Phals out in the hot sun.theyre still recuperating.
Leca is my go to orchid rehab substrate. I use it a lot when I rescue dying orchids from grocery stores. Then after they grow good roots in 6 months to a year I move them to bark or sphagnum.
Does that work well? With moving them into bark after that long in the leca?
@@phoenixreign7522 well I water it for twice a week for a week or two after moving it to bark. After that it should be acclimated.
Central Florida here. I'm still using half bark and half moss. For the last few years that has been working great for me. I'm going to slowly move to full moss on some of them and see if there is any difference. Thanks for all your videos and knowledge.
I am also in central Florida and use quite a bit of moss in my mixture. It does seem to help, but full moss doesn’t seem to work for me so far.
I encountered many of the same moisture issues, especially with finer-rooted orchids and micro orchids. I switched to fine lava rock (1-2 cm) and pumice, and kept the semi-hydro pots I DIY'd. It is just so much better in every way -- these rocks don't have the desiccant effect of dry LECA, they hold onto moisture much longer, and the wicking performance is much better. This mix is also heavier, which keeps top-heavy canes in place when first transitioning them. I also find that the oxygen needs of roots is possibly over-exaggerated. The air pockets in my new finer media is much smaller than in LECA, but still, orchid roots seek the very bottoms of the pots. I think we underestimate the ability of orchids to regulate oxygen levels in their roots.
I too have not had success with LECA but, as you say, some people do. I will stick to bark, as I also don't have much luck with moss as I tend to overwater. Many thanks for your videos 💖
where are you located. Humid climate? I'm in the southeastern US, and I've been worried about using moss.
@@heather1925 I wrote that about Leca a year ago and have since gone back to using leca, which is great for sick orchids to grow new roots. I'm in Florida 😎
Sphagnum moss has been doing wonders for me too. I trust I observe plants well enough not to overwater (overcame that phase) and it has been resulting in roots enjoying growing in it.
Thanks!
That’s a wonderful success! I tried moss but it’s not dry enough where I am and it’s humid. It never dried out. I just use plain old bark and it works ok but my orchids aren’t blooming very well. So many reason they aren’t blooming i get a little frustrated. But I still love my orchids. If they bloom I’m happy if they don’t I try again next year. Your orchids are always so beautiful I always look forward to seeing the blooms.
LECA works super well for me. I use tall pots that don't flare at the top. I seal the inside with boiled linseed oil and let it dry. This stops evaporation through the sides. I cover most but not all of the top of the LECA with the fine mounding moss you find in the woods. It drains well but maintains humidity and watering twice a week is enough and only with 1/2 cup of water each time. Works great for me in all seasons. No wicking up from the bottom or water in the bottom. It just drains through.
Hi Dani, in hydroponics the acidity of the medium is regulated by the ratio of nitrogen forms NH4:NO3. Plants prefer to use nitrogen in the form of NH4, and the acidity increases (pH decreases). If there are no NH4 ions in your fertilizer solution, the acidity will drop (pH will increase), even with a neutral substrate. Therefore, ammonium nitrate is necessarily added to the solution as a source of NH4, approximately 1/10 (must be selected experimentally, depending on the plant) of the total amount of nitrogen. When the pH increases, the iron contained in the solution ceases to be absorbed; this is the main problem of high pH. It is also preferable to use more stable iron chelates, for example DTPA instead of EDTA, since up to pH 7.5 iron will not become insoluble.
This is the answer! My normal white phal yukidian had 25+ blooms last year I moved to LECA it seems to grow well but now that it's time to bloom there's only 6 flowers and the spike stopped growing. I won't shift back because I'm a university student and I can leave it during the 2 months vacation without watering hehe.
I just started a phalaenopsis into seni hydro and so far i havent had an issue. That being said, its only been less than a month and i havent gone to actually fertilizing it yet, and i live in inland southern california, where we have an oven in the summer and occassionally snow in the winter, so im definitely going to keep the setup and see how it goes before i go back to bark for it.
Thanks
Thank you as well! 🧡
Hi Dani, I am a pharmacist by profession with majors in chemistry and pharmaceutical chemistry. I will try to make the science as simple as possible. I was curious about "my leca is alkaline". Technically this shouldn't be the case so for the last few months I have been doing experiments. Indeed the hydroponic solution becomes alkaline in the mid 8 range and this happens within 24 hours. I started forcing the pH down using 2% citric acid solution and there were some very interesting results. I saw black debris accumulating in the solution and a strong smell of hydrogen sulphide. Hydrogen sulphide is what use to make stink bombs. This raised my curiosity. So what is going on here? I used clear containers for the hydroponic solution and the orchid pot sat in that. Algae formed on the leca. It became very clear that when I adjusted the pH down to 4.5 using citric acid the algae didn't like it and started dying. I am sure that the breakdown of the algae is causing hydrogen sulphide to be produced. Lets look at what algae is doing. Algae grows rapidly in light. It needs CO2 to grow. CO2 is pulled out of the solution. CO2 in solution forms carbonic acid and reduces the pH. By removing the CO2 algae is raising the pH. In order to halt algae growth you need to remove white light so algae doesn't grow. I taped the containers in black tape and now have to only adjust the pH every 3 or 4 days. In short leca isn't the problem. Algae is the problem.2%
Hi! That is a great experiment! I’ll pick your brain a bit more though, you see.. I was using opaque pots for my semi hydro pots in order to avoid algae and cyanobacteria from forming. And the leca was still raising the ph in the reservoir, even without the algae. I’d love it if you’d have time to trial it with opaque pots as well. That would be very interesting to see the results! Thanks for your insights! 🧡 also, I always get cyanobacteria forming on wet sphagnum moss, hence why I use opaque pots and bark top layers. Any way I could prevent it from forming other than restricting light, nutrients and water? 🤔
@@MissOrchidGirl Some technical information: the white visible radio spectrum is a range of colours as seen in a rainbow. Chlorophyll uses the blue and red ends of the spectrum for photosynthesis. You can use a selective filter of yellow so that the other bands in spectrum don't penetrate or use black to exclude all light. Cyanobacteria also photosynthesise and research papers suggest they use the same range as chlorophyll so a yellow filter may work. I haven't used totally enclosed containers so there is still some light penetration. Opacity will not affect the wavelength of the light as it merely scatters light. I continue my research as it very fascinating. I only have a few phalaenopsis plants. 2 are in leca and doing well and a third in bark/moss. The latter was badly treated in the nursery and still bears the scars but has just dropped her last flowers after starting in May '23. Love your vlogs and have learnt so much. Thank you for all the work and information you put out there.
Expanded clay, yes its a hydroponic medium meaning it can handle regular water, because its well aerated, on the downside it has a sharp dry off curve. If Im not mistaken most orchids dont like regular water. Something like bark works because when wet properly it retains its moisture as reserves which create humidity around the roots and the roots can drink when needed. Cruahed clay mixed with other mediums is pretty good for plants that like regular watering
Thank you! As someone who’s been a part of (off and on) with the Las Vegas orchid society, since 2004, you gave me the reason for bark on top I’ve needed! Getting bark asap! Great content! Keep up the great work! 💚🌸🌼🪻
Based on info you discussed in your earlier videos I decided to run two wicks up through the Leca to the top of the pot. As you said it kept them alive and they looked good, but I too felt that they did not thrive. I changed my potting medium.
My orchids were merely surviving until I repotted in 100% sphagnum moss. Now they’re so happy and growing so well I need to make more room.
Maybe I'm old fashoned because I never tried other mediums than pine bark for orchids because it worked most the time for me. The pH from Leca seemed always unlogical to use for my orchids. What i like to try now is small kork chips for some of my plants who wants extra portion of air at the roots- it holds no water but fill only space. Sphagnum is very important for many things, love it! I mix coconut humus with very fine pine bark for Odontoglossum and other fine roots. Thank you for this video! ❤
I just reported two of my orchids in Leca (just learned about what it is a week ago). I mixed Leca and bark since Leca is expensive. I used the upside down soda bottle set up. We shall see.
It is also a personal preference of things and also you have to be very situational when changing your mind interms of your plants conditions/environment and such
Hi Danny… gr8 video…
I often wondered why you went 100% to Leica and did not have any “controls”… maybe I saw a couple of videos where you took
similar/same orchid varieties and made comparisons… but comparing growing mediums…anyway all good now! Congratulations…
As always you have given us a very interesting video. I have always kept my orchids in bark, however I would like to try one in just moss and one in both moss and bark I just really want to see how they grow, Thank you Dani.
Thank you so much for sharing, i really loved your detailed explanations. Ive always thought of leca just making sense with orchids but seemingly its not the best. For me just regular bark works pretty well, i'm living in germany in a pretty mixed climate but summers are pretty medium hot around here, no more than like 3 weeks above 30 °C.
The medium that's worked best for me over the years is broken terra cotta chips, about 1/2" (1 cm) in size. Much smaller and the roots have trouble penetrating as they grow. I put them in a terra cotta pot and water from the drip saucer below. You can watch the pot turning darker as the water wicks its way up toward the top, which tells you exactly how much water is getting into the roots. The roots themselves never see water directly, just water vapor evaporating out of the chips, so rotting is never a problem. Leca in my experience doesn't do the same thing at all. You can soak the pellets for hours but if you break one open you can see it's like a glassy ceramic in there, it doesn't seem to absorb any amount of water at all. My terra cotta pot with chips does so well that the neighboring orchids sneak their aerial roots over and wrap themselves around the pot so that they can enjoy the moisture too!
This sounds interesting- how often do you have to water?
I tried clay but all the roots stick to the pot and impossible to soak them lose without breaking.
Do you make your own chips?
I am new to orchids (about 1 1/2yrs) , and am going to be trying Leca for the first time this spring on my phals, 1 dendrobium, 1 cattleya. I have tried bark (too dry), moss (too wet) and a combo of the two (dry on top, a lot of mould in the pot). My main issue is the swings in temp I think for my environment- it's a 25-30°c summer, and a very cold place in winter (I keep the room above 14°c in winter with heating). I have a humidifier on regularly, just to keep the humidity in the 60-70 (as I have a very dry environment). I'm hoping that with your experience, and also Danni and The Orchid rooms experience I might have a solution! Leca on the bottom, moss on the top. I will pick how much moss dependent on the species, but I hope this helps find a solution to my awkward environment! If anyone else has tried this solution please let me know your experience?! I can't seem to find much talk about this combo on the web. 😊
This was something I had wondered about, I’ve been watching a lot of your videos since I started collecting orchids last year (I’m a newbie and it’s SO exciting, gosh I love these little plants so much they have saved my sanity). I noticed you had changed from a semi hydro set up , and I was curious as to why. Leca seems initially to have so many pros. I was tempted to move all of my 170 ish houseplants over to it in one swoop. I thought it might get rid of those pesky fungus gnats.
But it did occur to me that it’s a very heavy load on you , to always make sure to be providing the nutrients needed. Life gets in the way sometimes & I definitely do forget to feed my plants on occasion , I feel like organic set ups are probably more forgiving there. I am a total newbie to orchids though so I am not speaking from experience in that respect. I’ve definitely found leca is a great addition to my potting mixes for aroids and my African violets. But I think I’m probably too lazy to try full semi hydro with leca 🤣 ps your cattleyas are absolute beauties
I've been waiting for this video!
I've had years of success with LECA and semi-hydro until recently. It used to keep me from overwatering. IDK why but my stuff isn't thriving anymore. I'm moving my orchids back into bark.
Interesting. I put 2 healthy and productive Phals in nothing but New Zealand sphagnum moss and it gave them root rot within 2 weeks. I lost them both so I went back to coconut husk/ Repot me blend. Not thrilled with these results either- roots seem dehydrated often. I’m in the kKansas City area so temps and humidity are variable.
Hi from OZ! Just wondering if you were bleaching your lecca to sterilise it? Or just plain boiling it? Am not a lecca fan either - bleaching lecca will surely raise its pH even with long soaks of plain h20 afterward.
and where im going to find sphagnum moss in cyprus?! it took me a while to find leca now sphagnum moss i give up!
i put all of my plants into leca around half a year ago and i have so mixed feelings. some of my plants like monstera adansonii or philodendron burlemarx variegata loves leca and all of my plants grow BUT... i encounter SO much root rot, no matter what i do.
i use hydro fertilizer, i ec and ph balance, i have good airflow, i keep temps in check... it gets so annoying to a point i have to trim back dead roots every 2 weeks or so so keepo the plants healthy. especially the roots that grow into the reservoir allways rot away. BUT i think there must be a way to resolve that issue, and i m sure i can find out a way.
the main issue however i m having with leca right now is maintenance and how freaking time consuming it is. with a chunky aroid mix, you just store it in a box, want to pot a new plant, grab some, put it in, some water over it done. i cant do that with leca. leca even tho the concept is more simple, requires so many more steps, brainwork, equipment and money that i spend like 2-3 times as much time as i had with soil.
i need to prepare leca, rinse it, cook it, soak it ph balance it... so i can pot up a plant in a couple days. you constantly have to measure and mix nutrients and fertilizers and i have so many bottles around the house of stuff to buy, and additives and whatnot, you need so many more pots and so much more expensive pots aswell. with soil, i ll just go to the local gardencenter and buy lets say a 15cm pot from elho for like 99cents, put a saucer below for 30 cents and call it a day. With leca, i need new pots, preferably clear ones, i need to put extra holes into them and prepare the pots, i then need decorative cachepots for... ALL OF THEM as a reservoir and those pots are so expensive and such a limiting factor. combined with how fast i need to repot in leca, i hit a point where i need to repot but i cant because i dont have any cachepots and most of the cachepots i have dont 100% fit in size either.
and oh boy... not gonna lie, i hate flushing and watering them so much. since they all sit in decorative cachepots, i have to take out every single plant one by one out of the pot to check the reservoir, the run all plants into the bathroom one by one and emptying it and flushing it and then rewater them and if you have a lot of plants next to each other you have to basicly pull put all plants. comparing this to just put some water over your plants until you see it coming out at the bottom and then forget about for a week or so... its insane how much more work leca workflow is. oh and you need to buy this and this and this. and another bottle. and then in case you use mosspoles and you take a cutting, those cuttings are basicly useless because their roots have moss all over and rot in leca anyways.
i dont HATE leca. in fact i still like the idea, but i intitially started with leca because i thought its easier and it will save me time... it does not, it requires way more time and attention than soil does and it gets so technicly and overwhelming and it makes me consider going back to soil again because i genuinely miss those easy times, where you just bought a plant and you dont have to convert it or anything and you just put in some soilmix and be done.
How about tree bark and charcoal? Seems like charcoal is bad for the roots of phalaenopsis orchid which I tested.
The best media in my opinion is Charcoal. Many Orchid growers swear by it. It made a lot of orchids healthy and lush.
Hi, charcoal retains virtually no water, so it would be a nightmare for me to water. There is no such thing as the best media, no matter who swears by it, could be the head of the AOS it means nothing. No one knows my, yours, others environment, so no one can say use this cos its the best, that’s selfish and ignorant. Know what I mean? :)) use what works for you and don’t tell others you know nothing about use it too cos its the best and nothing else is.. 👍
I successfully grew a dendrobuim noble in charcoal outside
Thanks Danny
Can we add an organic substrate to address the ph and moisture like coco cubes or cocopeat? 🤔🤔🤔
Danny, so I understand that you mainly use only sphagnum moss for all your cattleyas?
Hi Danny, I am sorry that LECA didn't work out for you. I have the majority of my Hoyas in LECA and a few aroids, and they are all doing well in my environment. I am experimenting with a few mini orchids in Pon now with smooth pebbles on top and so far, so good. I was wondering if you could update us on your progress cool growers. the Miltonia, Miltoniopsis and I believe you had a Dracula orchid, too. Thank you and happy growing!
So do still use self watering using sphagnum moss? Love your videos
Good explanation. Thanks
How often do you need to change out the moss? I'm just about to repot my first supermarket orchid.
Hi Dani, I would like to know when you use LECA what is the MSU dosage you use for them? I am using LECA in self watering pots but I don't know if I use the correct amount of MSU for them. Thanks
I was wondering if I can use lava rock for my orchids, will that be possible?
Are you still using only sphagnum? I find that bark rots my roots fast but moss is better weirdly even though its wetter.
What do you think about the bark and charcoal
I have more pourus LECA (i live in Europe) and I'm adding it to pine bark
If you have it in a lechuza style pot, do you keep a little bit of water in the bottom with a microfiber in the bottom of the pot?
Hi Danny, have you ever used Colomi?
Hi, yes I have just type it in the search bar you'll find my videos 😊
Has anyone ever layered sphagnum moss and leca?
Do you believe that having a 10 degree Fahrenheit differential in growing orchids to full potential is also important.?
Curious how you do a flush in your set up? Or do you just exchange one cycle of fertilized water for no fertilizer?
My orchid is in a glass vase, as it was gifted ...I want to repot it ...pls guide
Do terra cotta pots do the same thing? Isn't leca like terra cotta?
Hey you! First off I want to thank you! I went from knowing zero about orchids, to watching many of your videos in order to save very sick orchids in my grandfather’s house. I actually got 6 really healthy(some had no hope😢) however I am stumped at why one has a flower spike that is frozen in time and doesnt advance ( she is stunningly healthy) and why others dont want to grow a flower spike. Am I missing something? I have followed your instructions on where to look on an old flower spike in order to make the cut over a notch where a new one might grow under the papery lip that protects them.. also I see under the 3d leaf layer a little bud wanting to grow and possibly become a flower spike.. it has been about 3 months though and maybe Im impatient🤣
Wow….when did you switch to full sphagnum? I thought you were still using layers of bark and sphagnum?
2-3 years ago... You haven't visited my channel in a while.. 😭
I wouldn’t use leca for the ph reason. I have a home brew solution. It’s basically the minerals from pon but in the size of leca balls. Since I bought the ph neutral minerals myself they aren’t fertilised and I have full control over the ec value and ph. The parts are lava rock, zeolite, and pumice thoroughly washed. You can use this for all sorts of plants. My rule of thumb is the bigger the roots the coarser your mix should be and vice versa.
Can you use sphagnum moss mixed with some LECA and a commercial orchid mix? Have you tried that? Would love your opinion, thanks.
Hi, have you tried this?
I just did that to my two orchids today. I wonder how it is going for you?
Thank you for sharing
I did put some rescue miltoniopsis in leca and spagnum. Seems the plants were inoculated with some fungus from the old media but it flurished in the leca. Does anyone else have issues with leca and this white fungus?
Hey! For your next myths vs truths or Q&A i just wondered - can fusarium be transferred through a cut flowerspike? Say ive used my pruners to cut into the rizome of an infected orchid - and then i cut a flowerspike on a different orchid with the same pruner (not recommended.. i know you should always desinfect), will it then infect that orchid? Im just a little scared bec i have some orchids with fusarium and though i do disinfect my tools, i just feel paranoid that maybe its not 100% desinfected u know lol
great video ty!
Do you think about growing moss yourself?
Do your pots have holes in the bottom?
Yes they do have drainage 😊
Great ❤
Coal for me.. wood chips and coal and perlite
I put my orchids into LECA in self watering pots when I lived here n South Africa and my orchids did so well.
I moved to Israel and have had no success with LECA. The orchids that are doing well are still in the bark from the store!
I like sphagnum moss the best I can't grow orchid with out it
It looks to me that the Lecca was absorbing more nutrients than the roots or the roots were competing for nutrition with the Lecca. With the high ph the roots stopped getting the nutrients they need and the orchids stall.
Is the all white pots thing still a goal?
Kinda, it's hard to find all white pots that for everything, so I'm also using 'almost' white pots too 😋