@@TheOrchidRoom nerds rule...:) It does help. In just over a month I have converted my collection (about 15 species and growing :) ) to semi hydro and it's just getting exciting now...new growth, new roots...starting to make sense now. Thx for all you do.
I really appreciate that you make so many media tests, especially on inorganic medias! I'm very new to the hobby, but I'm really getting the impression that a lot of people are more fans of organic media; and when everyone who makes tutorials uses it, that gives the impression that maybe there's something wrong with inorganic and that's why people aren't using it. Speaking of Miss Orchid Girl, she's totally given up on inorganic and is nowadays pretty much just like 'oh, I don't like that media or that media', and that's that. Also, I don't want to be too picky, but... The Japanese 'ai' sound is pronounced like 'eye'.
Thanks! They're my geeky guilty pleasure :-D Also, I found it very difficult when I started out to understand why people mixed media, and why there were no proportions or ratios spelled out, and why that was only really published for organic media. The major realisation that helped me was understanding the properties of each, and how it all depends on what you want to achieve in the pot, which also depends on environment and the orchid in question. So I hope putting these tests up helps other people in the same boat as I was! I have a huge amount of respect for MissOrchidGirl, and I always try and credit her when something I talk about originated with her, so don't want this to be taken in the wrong way at all. She has a job to do, and that's to help people learn to grow orchids, and most of the viewers are maybe using organic media. And Repotme probably wouldn't sponsor her if she was just using inorganic. I totally get that, and I'm not saying it's about money at all, I just noticed the timing of when she switched was just before the Repotme stuff, and I could be way off mark and should probably keep my opinions to myself. I would never attack her for it, she is the best at what she does, but I do get people commenting that it didn't work for MOG, and I always have this at the back of my mind. I could be totally and completely wrong here and way over the line, and I'm super sorry if I am. We all grow in our own ways :-) I also heard her say the pH thing was a big pain, so there is that too, and I totally get that. Her environment is quite harsh also, and I have had to spend so much time troubleshooting dry layer issues with all these different media combinations, so I get that it is a pain. For me, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, but maybe not for her, and that's totally cool :-) Oh I'm sorry! Which Japanese word did I use and massacre? Kyodama? Bonsai? Thanks so much for watching and commenting, it's great to have these conversations :-)
@@TheOrchidRoom It really is wild how many different factors there are when it comes to orchid potting! I've noticed that people mainly talk about hot and dry, hot and humid, or cool and humid climates when recommending which media is best. But what about cool and dry?? I just took a risk on lava rock and was lucky that it seems to work for me- I couldn't really find much information about its properties, and just decided that since so many people in Hawaii use it, it can't be terrible, so it was worth a try. Luckily, I found that it has a really great ratio of water to air for me. I feel kind of rude. Miss Orchid Girl makes amazing videos, but I do feel like inorganic media has become a blind spot for her? I'm obviously not saying she should use it if it doesn't work for her (haha, I hate everyone else's golden child, sphagnum moss), but on a lot of her videos since she switched back to organic, I feel like she sometimes...kind of pooh-poohs inorganic growing methods a little. In a recent video where she talked about the pH issue, I left a comment saying that there are inorganic medias which don't raise the pH the way LECA does (isn't lava rock pH neutral?), and she just replied that 'there are other factors besides pH, and I didn't like lava rock'. Her only media test video where she talks about lava rock...kind of didn't explain why she didn't like it?? I mean, we all have our preferences and our blind spots, but... Miss Orchid Girl has kind of become THE authority on the internet concerning orchid care. If you look up a type of orchid or any orchid care question, chances are your first search engine result is going to be one of her videos. So if people get the impression that MOG is anti-inorganic, that could actually turn a lot of people in the hobby off of trying it. I love your videos in general, but I especially appreciate your focus on inorganic methods and doing varied media tests. You do a really good job of just giving the facts about the media's properties in the tests and not making value judgements about them. Speaking of, I may need to consider trying out some seramis! Water doesn't evaporate quickly in my home, so I wouldn't want a full pot of it, but for my oncidium type which seems unhappy the moment its roots get dry, maybe some seramis mixed in would help! Kaizen. You've been saying it like 'Keizen', when the 'kai' should be pronounced the same as in 'bonsai'. Although...now that you mention Kyodama, that's also a hard one... The 'kyo' sound is really hard to explain how to pronounce. Rather than the 'ki' and 'yo' being separate, the 'k' leads right into the 'yo'. Japanese has quite a few compound sounds like that, and they're so hard to explain when you can't just say it out loud for someone! At least in Japanese the vowels are always pronounced the same way, unlike in English? I've been pronouncing 'colonel' wrong my entire life!
@@karmiya-plays I agree, I also feel like lighting and air movement both have a massive effect on the moisture ratio and distribution in the pot, but they aren't so talked about much. Lighting because that is massively increasing or affecting the orchids growth, water and nutrient requirements, so in high light lots more water will be drained by the orchid which affects distribution in the pot. So really it is so tough to generalise, so I think it's important to experiment to find that perfect balance 🙂 also how big the orchid is, how many roots it has etc, how much water it needs to take on to support it's size. So many factors!
@@TheOrchidRoom I think it's really easy for people in the hobby to get into the mindset of thinking that a media which works well for them is objectively good, and if someone doesn't have success with it, they're doing it wrong (or got a bad batch). Even New World Orchids (a nursery near me which specialises in Japanese miniatures like neofinetias) suggests that growers in the northern US who struggle with sphagnum moss are probably packing it too tight. So no matter how much you say 'it just didn't work for me', people insist that you're at fault, not that maybe the media/growing method isn't very compatible with your home environment. I think my new policy with orchids is going to be this: if it's not working, don't try harder, just try something else! I know that switching your orchid's setup a lot isn't necessarily great, but I feel like it's also bad to keep making it grow in a setup that isn't working just because everyone says it should be working. Thank you so much for replying to my comments! I can be terribly babbly, I'm sorry, but I'm so grateful that you're willing to sometimes chat with me a little about orchid care!
Definitely my kind of Orchid videos. Factual, informative, bit geeky and no fluff/nonsense or too much of personal/private stuff. Ignore negative people ;))
Glad you like them! Thanks, I appreciate it :-) I hope they help a bit, I personally found the idea of mixing media quite confusing when I first started :-)
So the bubbling is going to be affected by two things. 1) the size of the pores in the product. Larger pores will cause more visible bubbling. 2) the dryness of the interior of the product. I suspect that the pores have more to do with it than any moisture within them. Moler clay has a different structure than ordinary clay because of the high diatom and iron content and is known to have more air than traditional clay after firing.
@@TheOrchidRoom nah. I have a friend that is an artist who works with clay and glass. I asked her once why some of my terracotta pots are "soft" and retain water while others are "hard" and stay dry. So she went into a talk on how moisture content of clay before firing and firing temperature affects the hardness and pore size. So then I was trying to find out what temperature they fire moler clay and down the rabbit hole I went learning more than I need about the stuff. Apparently moler clay bricks were once in high demand for building because they could be light enough to float on water but were nearly as hard as concrete.
I'm not going to be original in this group. I love your nerdy approach. So interesting... If you could investigate the topic of different PH requirements for different orchids, that would be awesome. I've started to add crushed coral to some of my orchids (those preferring higher PH) but I haven't checked the impact on PH. Maybe you could add this material to your tests.
Hi Tomek! Thanks for the comment, I appreciate it! Interesting ideas for sure! I'm not sure how sustainable coral is? I would be a little wary personally as an initial thought, but I haven't looked into it. Coral reef decline etc? Just a personal feeling, I don't know enough about commercially available coral. There is lots of literature out there for the pH requirements for different species :-) As a general rule- epiphytes evolved adapted to bark, acidic pH, moss, acidic, decomposing leaf litter, acidic. Same for semi-terrestrial that are found in moss and decomposing leaf litter. Lithophytes/ rock growers are adapted to neutral to alkaline pH, as I believe are those epiphytes that are found growing on the coast with salty sea air- possibly brassavola nodosa. Worth checking the natural habitat of each of the species you are interested in knowing more about :-) Thanks for watching and for the ideas!
1,90€ / bag at Wichmann Orchideen... I don’t know the weight / bag to compare the price with the weight / bag from Orchitop ... now to continue watching the video 🤗
Thanks Nina 🙂 I filmed this before your unboxing so wasn't totally sure at the time if it was the same, but seeing yours, it looks similar to the larger grade I have here 🙂 Which is now all used up 😪 When my ordering ban is over I will have to make an order at Wichmann 🙂
@@TheOrchidRoom orchid ban? Sounds like my husband, he said not to order any more, then I saw your video from orchids and more and ordered 14. Still no tolumnia as yet.
Hi Annabelle. I am new to growing orchids. I just purchased a mini phal which was packed in that cheap plastic pot in sphagnum moss. I removed it from the pot but I was wondering if I should repot it back in sphagnum moss. Should I use a little bit of the old sphagnum. I was told not sure if this is true, if you take a little bit of the old sphagnum and add it with the new it helps to acclimate the orchid.
Hi! Potting medium choice is very dependant on your climate- in nurseries they tightly pack sphagnum and water with sprinkler systems, so the sphagnum would never be soaking wet. If you have a very warm or dry climate you can definitely grow phals in pure sphagnum, but in a typical home I would say you may run into issues in winter with it staying soggy too long. Depends on how you water of course. For organic medium, I would recommend a mix of sphagnum and bark, maybe 60% large bark, 40% sphagnum, for typical intermediate to warm, low humidity home conditions. If growing on the cooler or more humid side, probably just bark would be better. As for transferring the old medium, I wouldn't. The premise is, you transfer the beneficial microbiome from the old pot into the new. But if you don't H202 the roots, that will happen anyway. So otherwise, you're just adding old, decomposing medium into your fresh potting mix. Hope that helps 🙂 And remember the more sphagnum you add into a mix, the faster it breaks down and needs a repot. Sphagnum needs a yearly repot, bark can go 2 years if you follow 1 week wet dry cycles with a good quality bark 🙂
@@TheOrchidRoom Annabelle thank you so much for the in-depth information you gave me regarding my orchids. I really appreciate all your time and effort.
Hi Annibel, since it’s very hard to get seramis and synthic here in the states, what do you think about adding microfiber to the clay pebbles for more moisture?
Hi! You could totally do that, I ran out of synthic so did this for a few- it works well but isn't quite as good. If I had a choice, I would choose synthic, but if that's not an option then microfiber does the same job essentially! although if you do want to try Synthic in the US, Glassbox Tropicals stock it 🙂
Thankyou! It is so much cheaper than orchitop, I will have to order some! It gives much more flexibility than the smaller grade for larger rooted orchids! Thanks again 💗
Thanks 🙂 There's only so long you can go hiding the nerdy stuff before it starts spilling out 🤣😉 I'm trying to trickle the geeky videos in amongst the others 😉😀
This is an excellent video. So much information to absorb, but for someone growing in inorganic media this is right up my alley 🌸🌸💜
Thanks Kelly! 💗🙂 Glad you found it useful! 🙂
I love the scientific approach to all this...really helps the new guys (me) get started with predictable results. thx for these
Great to hear! I hope it helps :-) Thanks so much for watching!
@@TheOrchidRoom nerds rule...:) It does help. In just over a month I have converted my collection (about 15 species and growing :) ) to semi hydro and it's just getting exciting now...new growth, new roots...starting to make sense now. Thx for all you do.
I really appreciate that you make so many media tests, especially on inorganic medias! I'm very new to the hobby, but I'm really getting the impression that a lot of people are more fans of organic media; and when everyone who makes tutorials uses it, that gives the impression that maybe there's something wrong with inorganic and that's why people aren't using it. Speaking of Miss Orchid Girl, she's totally given up on inorganic and is nowadays pretty much just like 'oh, I don't like that media or that media', and that's that.
Also, I don't want to be too picky, but... The Japanese 'ai' sound is pronounced like 'eye'.
Thanks! They're my geeky guilty pleasure :-D Also, I found it very difficult when I started out to understand why people mixed media, and why there were no proportions or ratios spelled out, and why that was only really published for organic media. The major realisation that helped me was understanding the properties of each, and how it all depends on what you want to achieve in the pot, which also depends on environment and the orchid in question. So I hope putting these tests up helps other people in the same boat as I was!
I have a huge amount of respect for MissOrchidGirl, and I always try and credit her when something I talk about originated with her, so don't want this to be taken in the wrong way at all. She has a job to do, and that's to help people learn to grow orchids, and most of the viewers are maybe using organic media. And Repotme probably wouldn't sponsor her if she was just using inorganic. I totally get that, and I'm not saying it's about money at all, I just noticed the timing of when she switched was just before the Repotme stuff, and I could be way off mark and should probably keep my opinions to myself. I would never attack her for it, she is the best at what she does, but I do get people commenting that it didn't work for MOG, and I always have this at the back of my mind. I could be totally and completely wrong here and way over the line, and I'm super sorry if I am. We all grow in our own ways :-) I also heard her say the pH thing was a big pain, so there is that too, and I totally get that. Her environment is quite harsh also, and I have had to spend so much time troubleshooting dry layer issues with all these different media combinations, so I get that it is a pain. For me, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages, but maybe not for her, and that's totally cool :-)
Oh I'm sorry! Which Japanese word did I use and massacre? Kyodama? Bonsai?
Thanks so much for watching and commenting, it's great to have these conversations :-)
@@TheOrchidRoom It really is wild how many different factors there are when it comes to orchid potting! I've noticed that people mainly talk about hot and dry, hot and humid, or cool and humid climates when recommending which media is best. But what about cool and dry?? I just took a risk on lava rock and was lucky that it seems to work for me- I couldn't really find much information about its properties, and just decided that since so many people in Hawaii use it, it can't be terrible, so it was worth a try. Luckily, I found that it has a really great ratio of water to air for me.
I feel kind of rude. Miss Orchid Girl makes amazing videos, but I do feel like inorganic media has become a blind spot for her? I'm obviously not saying she should use it if it doesn't work for her (haha, I hate everyone else's golden child, sphagnum moss), but on a lot of her videos since she switched back to organic, I feel like she sometimes...kind of pooh-poohs inorganic growing methods a little. In a recent video where she talked about the pH issue, I left a comment saying that there are inorganic medias which don't raise the pH the way LECA does (isn't lava rock pH neutral?), and she just replied that 'there are other factors besides pH, and I didn't like lava rock'. Her only media test video where she talks about lava rock...kind of didn't explain why she didn't like it?? I mean, we all have our preferences and our blind spots, but... Miss Orchid Girl has kind of become THE authority on the internet concerning orchid care. If you look up a type of orchid or any orchid care question, chances are your first search engine result is going to be one of her videos. So if people get the impression that MOG is anti-inorganic, that could actually turn a lot of people in the hobby off of trying it.
I love your videos in general, but I especially appreciate your focus on inorganic methods and doing varied media tests. You do a really good job of just giving the facts about the media's properties in the tests and not making value judgements about them. Speaking of, I may need to consider trying out some seramis! Water doesn't evaporate quickly in my home, so I wouldn't want a full pot of it, but for my oncidium type which seems unhappy the moment its roots get dry, maybe some seramis mixed in would help!
Kaizen. You've been saying it like 'Keizen', when the 'kai' should be pronounced the same as in 'bonsai'. Although...now that you mention Kyodama, that's also a hard one... The 'kyo' sound is really hard to explain how to pronounce. Rather than the 'ki' and 'yo' being separate, the 'k' leads right into the 'yo'. Japanese has quite a few compound sounds like that, and they're so hard to explain when you can't just say it out loud for someone! At least in Japanese the vowels are always pronounced the same way, unlike in English? I've been pronouncing 'colonel' wrong my entire life!
@@karmiya-plays I agree, I also feel like lighting and air movement both have a massive effect on the moisture ratio and distribution in the pot, but they aren't so talked about much. Lighting because that is massively increasing or affecting the orchids growth, water and nutrient requirements, so in high light lots more water will be drained by the orchid which affects distribution in the pot. So really it is so tough to generalise, so I think it's important to experiment to find that perfect balance 🙂 also how big the orchid is, how many roots it has etc, how much water it needs to take on to support it's size. So many factors!
@@TheOrchidRoom I think it's really easy for people in the hobby to get into the mindset of thinking that a media which works well for them is objectively good, and if someone doesn't have success with it, they're doing it wrong (or got a bad batch). Even New World Orchids (a nursery near me which specialises in Japanese miniatures like neofinetias) suggests that growers in the northern US who struggle with sphagnum moss are probably packing it too tight. So no matter how much you say 'it just didn't work for me', people insist that you're at fault, not that maybe the media/growing method isn't very compatible with your home environment.
I think my new policy with orchids is going to be this: if it's not working, don't try harder, just try something else! I know that switching your orchid's setup a lot isn't necessarily great, but I feel like it's also bad to keep making it grow in a setup that isn't working just because everyone says it should be working.
Thank you so much for replying to my comments! I can be terribly babbly, I'm sorry, but I'm so grateful that you're willing to sometimes chat with me a little about orchid care!
Definitely my kind of Orchid videos. Factual, informative, bit geeky and no fluff/nonsense or too much of personal/private stuff. Ignore negative people ;))
Thanks Milan 💗💗💗
I love the "nerdy" videos. Useful info I can't find anywhere else that help newbies like me.
Glad you like them! Thanks, I appreciate it :-) I hope they help a bit, I personally found the idea of mixing media quite confusing when I first started :-)
Great video! I really appreciate your effort and the fact-based approach!
These tests are awesome, I hate having to uproot orchids and nepenthes because of substrate breakdown
This is fantastic! Really enjoy this kind of informative, scientific approach to identify alternatives to improve the growing environment.
Awesome, thank you! Glad you find these types of videos useful! :-)
I love rocks, stone and clay too! We appreciate the work that goes into these videos!
Rock on! :-D Ok, That was cheesy, but I am super glad you find the videos useful, maybe we can start a rock club B-)
Wow this is a scienticic approach. Thanks! Really helpful.
So the bubbling is going to be affected by two things. 1) the size of the pores in the product. Larger pores will cause more visible bubbling. 2) the dryness of the interior of the product. I suspect that the pores have more to do with it than any moisture within them. Moler clay has a different structure than ordinary clay because of the high diatom and iron content and is known to have more air than traditional clay after firing.
Interesting, that makes sense, thanks Michael 🙂
I have to ask, I've been thinking about it, how do you know so much on this? XD Pottery classes? Clay engineering? :-)
@@TheOrchidRoom nah. I have a friend that is an artist who works with clay and glass. I asked her once why some of my terracotta pots are "soft" and retain water while others are "hard" and stay dry. So she went into a talk on how moisture content of clay before firing and firing temperature affects the hardness and pore size. So then I was trying to find out what temperature they fire moler clay and down the rabbit hole I went learning more than I need about the stuff. Apparently moler clay bricks were once in high demand for building because they could be light enough to float on water but were nearly as hard as concrete.
Thank you Annabelle!!
Thanks Jane :-)
Yay for nerdy videos! 8-)
🤓🤓🤓🤓😀
I'm not going to be original in this group. I love your nerdy approach. So interesting... If you could investigate the topic of different PH requirements for different orchids, that would be awesome. I've started to add crushed coral to some of my orchids (those preferring higher PH) but I haven't checked the impact on PH. Maybe you could add this material to your tests.
Hi Tomek! Thanks for the comment, I appreciate it! Interesting ideas for sure! I'm not sure how sustainable coral is? I would be a little wary personally as an initial thought, but I haven't looked into it. Coral reef decline etc? Just a personal feeling, I don't know enough about commercially available coral. There is lots of literature out there for the pH requirements for different species :-) As a general rule- epiphytes evolved adapted to bark, acidic pH, moss, acidic, decomposing leaf litter, acidic. Same for semi-terrestrial that are found in moss and decomposing leaf litter. Lithophytes/ rock growers are adapted to neutral to alkaline pH, as I believe are those epiphytes that are found growing on the coast with salty sea air- possibly brassavola nodosa. Worth checking the natural habitat of each of the species you are interested in knowing more about :-) Thanks for watching and for the ideas!
@@TheOrchidRoom I've just asked the producer of the coral sand (Aqua Medic) how is it harvested. Let's see what they have to say.
Can you tell us where to purchase the Seramis??? Thanks for all your testing!!!
I like geeky videos
Thankyou! 🙂🤓
Nice test, 👍
Love it 🤓✏️
Thanks Ian! 🤓😀
Is seramis suitable for self-watering pots?
1,90€ / bag at Wichmann Orchideen... I don’t know the weight / bag to compare the price with the weight / bag from Orchitop ... now to continue watching the video 🤗
Thanks Nina 🙂 I filmed this before your unboxing so wasn't totally sure at the time if it was the same, but seeing yours, it looks similar to the larger grade I have here 🙂 Which is now all used up 😪 When my ordering ban is over I will have to make an order at Wichmann 🙂
The Orchid Room beware their ample young plant section!! 😂 it’s irresistible!
@@TheOrchidRoom orchid ban? Sounds like my husband, he said not to order any more, then I saw your video from orchids and more and ordered 14. Still no tolumnia as yet.
Thanks Annabel! Another fascinating and informative video. You are doing an awesome job!
@@kellythomas-booth9274 It's so easy to just accidentally get another 10 or 20 ;-) But yes...it's a boyfriend induced ban, he will forget soon :-D
Hi Annabelle. I am new to growing orchids. I just purchased a mini phal which was packed in that cheap plastic pot in sphagnum moss. I removed it from the pot but I was wondering if I should repot it back in sphagnum moss. Should I use a little bit of the old sphagnum. I was told not sure if this is true, if you take a little bit of the old sphagnum and add it with the new it helps to acclimate the orchid.
Hi! Potting medium choice is very dependant on your climate- in nurseries they tightly pack sphagnum and water with sprinkler systems, so the sphagnum would never be soaking wet. If you have a very warm or dry climate you can definitely grow phals in pure sphagnum, but in a typical home I would say you may run into issues in winter with it staying soggy too long. Depends on how you water of course. For organic medium, I would recommend a mix of sphagnum and bark, maybe 60% large bark, 40% sphagnum, for typical intermediate to warm, low humidity home conditions. If growing on the cooler or more humid side, probably just bark would be better. As for transferring the old medium, I wouldn't. The premise is, you transfer the beneficial microbiome from the old pot into the new. But if you don't H202 the roots, that will happen anyway. So otherwise, you're just adding old, decomposing medium into your fresh potting mix. Hope that helps 🙂 And remember the more sphagnum you add into a mix, the faster it breaks down and needs a repot. Sphagnum needs a yearly repot, bark can go 2 years if you follow 1 week wet dry cycles with a good quality bark 🙂
@@TheOrchidRoom Annabelle thank you so much for the in-depth information you gave me regarding my orchids. I really appreciate all your time and effort.
No problem! Glad to be able to help 🙂
Hi Annibel, since it’s very hard to get seramis and synthic here in the states, what do you think about adding microfiber to the clay pebbles for more moisture?
Hi! You could totally do that, I ran out of synthic so did this for a few- it works well but isn't quite as good. If I had a choice, I would choose synthic, but if that's not an option then microfiber does the same job essentially! although if you do want to try Synthic in the US, Glassbox Tropicals stock it 🙂
The Seramis from Wichmann is the larger grade :)
Thankyou! It is so much cheaper than orchitop, I will have to order some! It gives much more flexibility than the smaller grade for larger rooted orchids! Thanks again 💗
Does your moler clay sound like a tropical rainforest? Mine does 🥰
It kinda fizzes and crackles a bit? I like your imagery, I was thinking a bowl of rice crispies :-D
That's not mold on the top. It's salts and minerals from your tap water
Don't worry about being a nerd because you are one!!!!😎
What's wrong with that?
Thanks 🙂 There's only so long you can go hiding the nerdy stuff before it starts spilling out 🤣😉 I'm trying to trickle the geeky videos in amongst the others 😉😀