I love the order of your topics. The other day I saw a subscriber suggesting that you totally drop the topic notification. You can take plant advice from subscribers, but don’t think you should change your video style for subscribers; everyone has their own taste & you can’t please everyone. We all have the opportunity to produce our own RUclips videos exactly like we want. Do you & thanks for sharing!
Awwww thank you both, it means the world to me that you enjoy them 😊. Cool will go back to my way then. I think i already filmed 1-2 more in this format, after those will go back to the old order 😊🌿💚
I am a new kid on the block and since discovering your page can't stop watching your videos, They're so informative. I love all the knowledge you give us to succeed in our journey. I love that you do updated videos too as it helps to let me know on the growth and how you've been finding looking after them. This is a great way to know if you want a plant in your collection. Thank you for sharing your knowledge much appreciated ☺️
Hey Shana, awww welcome to the channel, I am so glad you are enjoying 😊 🌿💚 yeah I am with you it's always good to have the updates to see how things have progressed 😁🌱🌿🪴🌴
Aloha Memo, from Maui…. Thank you for this updated Melano video. As always your information is very appreciated. 1) Purchased 4 small Melano plug starters in January, & have them planted around a single moss pole. Already climbing & putting out bigger leaves than my largest Mican leaves, so I’m happy. 2) Moss Poles: I’ve mixed 50% sphagnum moss, with 50% coco chips/chunks, as sphagnum is hard to get on Maui & expensive to ship. Coco chips are much much cheaper here. I find the mixed pole works virtually like a 100% sphagnum pole, but at a much lower cost for my location. 3) Subliminal Messaging: I’ve never heard of P. Esmeraldense. BUT!!! It’s right in the screen on virtually all your videos!!! You’ve single handedly made Esmeraldense “A Must Have”!!! Got one in January, a second yesterday, & a third is on order. All three will surround a single moss pole, SOON!!! Mahalo, many Blessings & much Aloha……
Wow hi to Maui Al 😲😲😲 so cool that my videos are reaching Maui too 😁💚🌿 that is a great update thank you for sharing and also yeah 😅😅😅😅 sorry for the slight esmeraldense obsession, but I feel ya entirely as you can see from mine 😅😂 they are really awesome plants especially when they start getting huge 😍😍😍😍💚🌿
As always thank you Memo💚 Yesterday actually cut off the top of my very small one because the leaves were getting really tiny, today I’m making a few moss poles so that can get few of my climbers growing up, stuck the cutting in water see what happens ( not holding out too much hope)
Inregards to bulking out moss poles … you can buy a block of coco chips that requires soaking overnight and expand to may times the the amount from sphagnum uk - when its hydrated it comes out with chips and fibres - I’ve taken to mixing that 50/50 with sphagnum - it works!
Hi Memo, since you´ve still got the propagate (that unfortunately looks a little sad), why not put that on a moss pole and see if that grows better for you and/or is easier to propagate again. Comparig the two Melanochrysums would make a very interesting revieuw next year. Your question about mixing the moss is quite interesting. Orchid bark was my first thought, but that rots eventually, when kept moist. Maybe coco chips or a coarse perlite might work. Will be interesting to experient with, when I get to making my own moss poles.
I fill my pole with coco coir and coco chips. Moisture retention is amazing and I use the clear plastic d shape pole. I think mine are 60cm long and stackable. There is a bit of weight to them though
Ohhhh I will do for sure if I am not mistaken his one is huge. I might still have to airlayer this one time and then put it on a pile otherwise will have to make a huge pole for this one 😅😅😅😅🌿💚
Memo, I'm with you on the price of moss. I made my first one a few months ago to the exact specifications of Sydney Plant Guy, and the three foot section came to about $10 US. I know he had a mediocre experiment with using just coco chips, and his friend P.J. who owns a nursery said he should have packed the chips in tightly. I only plan to have three poles, each a total of six feet tall, so I probably won't experiment. But I will look forward to reading about other peoples' experiences, just in case. As always, thanks for taking the time to make your excellent videos.
I bought a small bit off live sphagnum. I keep it in a terrarium. I keep it in my prop terrarium. Sphagnum bogs are an amazing carbon sponge. Over harvesting is getting out of control and doing irreparable harm.
I use perlite in the center of my moss poles(it helps with costs and weight!) and I’ve been experimenting with tree fern fiber and coco chips mixed with moss.
I managed to pick up two nearly dead plants from a flower shop £5 each. Only three leaves on each plant in November. I have one plant with one leaf on it, and the second still has the three leaves but is just pushing out a new leaf. Yeah. Just hoping they will both grow this summer
I got an ittybittyteenietiny "rooted" Melanochrysum cutting and I've shoved it in my "ittybittyteenietiny greenhouse" (a cake stand) and it's still alive 😅 As for the DIY or lazy poles, since it's kind of hard to find sphagnum moss here, and it's quite expensive too, I make a sandwich of moss, bark and more moss. But I make a full pole, I skip the plastic on the back in hopes of getting a fuller plant in the future. Have a wonderful evening!!
Hey Valium 👋👋👋 love the ittybittyteenietiny story 💚💚💚💚 also love the idea of a cake stand as a bit greenhouse 🙌🙌🙌🙌 Also love the idea of your style of moss pole. And yeah never thought about it but never found moss in Greece. The only place I have occasionally seen it, is in pet shops that deal with reptiles, they usually have some form of moss 💚🌿 but yeah I would imagine it might be ridiculously priced 😬😬😬😅😅😅
Moss and perlite for my bigger poles because the wet moss gets heavy and you will have to add more supports. My melano is not sizing up and I’ve had it for 2 years. I’ve chopped and propped many times hoping to get bigger leaves and the leaves on the top cut are at 4inches. So now I have 6 and they are all small.
Hey Thelma and Sherry, I know the feeling, mine is the same 😅 😅 😅 😅 ohhh good shout on the perlite, years ago I came accross larger perlite chunks which could work freak, but can't find them now 🤔🤔🤔 need to do some investigating for sure 🕵️🕵️🕵️
my philodendron silver sword (that I've bought as tiny 10 cm plug) does that thing with the stem too - at the soil level stem has 4 mm and as it vines around the coir pole at the top it has a 16mm stem. it looks extremely silly. EDIT: Have you tried buying a bunch of moss from the nursery or some kind of garden center with outdoor plants and planting it in your yard? I live very close to the forest and the peat moss is taking over my yard, grows like massive fluffy carpet and after taking a whole shopping bag of it, I can barely see the "bald" spot it's so dense and spreads so easily. It's the only way to get it cheaply in Poland, because Sphagnum moss is pretty much unobtainable, unless ordering from abroad (or one could just yank it from the forest, I guess).
Maybe you have solved your moss pole question already. If you have not, I make my own “trees” from a nice looking stick. It could be an inch in diameter. It doesn’t have to be huge. Then I take patches of sphagnum and make little islands of moss up the tree, wrapping it with a natural fiber jute string or fishing line would work too. Then for looks I place some green terrarium moss over the sphagnum and bind it there. You can usually get this moss from the reptile section of the pet store. It actually comes back to life when you water it. When I am done it looks like a little mossy stick ladder. For a 1 meter long pole I bet you would only use a cup or two of sphagnum. You could secure it either to a wall, or within the pot, if it is not too long, or to the outside of the pot. Personally I share your dislike of moss poles, for esthetics, for the quantity of moss used and because they are like a high rise for pest inhabitations. I actually heard Tom Croat talk about placing a stick in the pot and wetting it thoroughly once a month. He didn’t think moss poles were necessary either. I just spray mine down when I water and the plants like it just fine. It doesn’t have to stay wet all the time.
Generally, I agree about stupid large specimens being potentially poached. But for this one, I imagine that a poached plant would look pretty beat up. The ones I've seen in their natural habitats are a million lightyears away from the pristine conditions houseplant collectors have come to expect. And like in any industry, there are trend scouts. I wanna give those sellers the benefit of the doubt in this case.
Tbh, I actually prefer my micans over my melano... You get a similar look for far less money, normal room conditions, it's easier to grow and faster too. In hindsight, if I'd known, I would not have bothered.
I use moss poles. And I use moss only in them. In fact if I could give one advice to my moss-pole-newbie-me, it would be to not buy the cheapest moss around. Because it will just mold on you and you don't want to buy cheap AND not cheap to replace the sh**
This is my challenge plant. Nemesis? I’ve killed 3. I keep trying. I’ve got 2 struggling in my fanciest plant cabinet right now. Getting real tired of their drama. I usually toss a plant if it can’t survive in what I can give it, but years ago I saw a video how “easy” these were. LIES!!!!
On the topic of poaching of the big mature plants - honest question: as far as google has told me, Melanochrysum is native to Colombia, not South East Asia.... if it was poached from the wild in Asia it would therefore be an invasive species, competing with the native ones... so why does it matter if they poach it off the wild in Asia instead of being grown by growers there?? With regard to growing melanochrysum - I've had my second one for over a year now. I got it at an online sale for 25€ and I've grown it in a no drainage glass vessel in my own self made pon (it's a coarser grade pon) I have it on a plastic sheet moss pole since I've first obtained it and it was up against my south east facing window supplemented by a sansi 24Watt grow light to give it 14 hours of light including during the winter. Average temperature in the summer was between 27 - 32°C and it never got lower than 18°C during the colder months. Even in the winter I fertilize with every watering through the moss pole (sea tang fertilizer *Pflanzenkraft* 1,5 X the recommented ammount + cal mag *Xpert* 2X the recommended amount and sometimes after a systemic pest treatment I'll also mix Great White Microrrhyzal innoculants into the water). I live in Germany and my water pH is at around 7, so I'm currently experimenting with lowering the pH to around 5,5 to see how all my plants will react. I bought it at the standard size you get it from stores nowadays (~ 20 cm long leaves) and after a year of growth it's doubled in leaf length, now stagnating at about 53cm in length (stagnation might be due to lower temps and also insufficient light, which I'll address in the upcoming weeks). Before it established itself into the pole, it was relatively slow and before it reached its catophyl stage I would get stuck/ ripped leaves. After the catophyl formed, it's been pushing out leaves as fast 1 leaf every 3-4 weeks non stop... with the only noticeable difference in the winter is that the leaves come out quickly, yet smaller than in the summer, take longer to harden off, however the plant is still gradually sizing up in leaf size. In the year I've had it, it's been chopped in half once and would otherwise be over 2 meters tall. I've had in the time I've had this plant a significant spider mite outbreak and while I did see webbing and mites on the backside of the leaves, I could barely spot any damage to its leaves - nothing comparable to the damage on my Alocasias at least. Thrips haven't been an issue for me, bc that was the reason my first plant died ( the first plant was my first rare hoseplant and my guinea pig so to say hahaha). The only noticeable flaw with the way I'm growing mine with regard to my own expectations is that melanochrysum, like gloriosum, does not like to have it's roots significantly submerged in the water reservoir. Be it in no drainage or self watering. Even if your plant has water roots like mine your plant won't be happy. The issue with the water is that, despite me never having issues with root rot, the plant takes up too much water and the lower leaves will quickly start showing signs of yellowing along the veins margins, from the central vein, towards the leaf margin. To combat this, I let the reservoir of my vessel completely depleat and after watering, I don't let the reservoir sit higher than maybe 1,5 cm. The problem has subsided after doing this. FYI: for the Germans in the comments. The melano is in the standard 20cm tall round glass vase from Depot. Lastly - I, as of this moment still actively call juvinile melanochrysum (micans staged melanochrysum) as a melanocrisis and have yet to successfully grow one to the size of the one I have now and I always recommend any of my friends to get a medium sized one like I did.... Thanks for this awesome video series!! Always enjoy watching them 😇
I love the order of your topics. The other day I saw a subscriber suggesting that you totally drop the topic notification. You can take plant advice from subscribers, but don’t think you should change your video style for subscribers; everyone has their own taste & you can’t please everyone. We all have the opportunity to produce our own RUclips videos exactly like we want. Do you & thanks for sharing!
I agree, love the way Mimo does his plant reviews. 💚💚
Awwww thank you both, it means the world to me that you enjoy them 😊. Cool will go back to my way then. I think i already filmed 1-2 more in this format, after those will go back to the old order 😊🌿💚
I am a new kid on the block and since discovering your page can't stop watching your videos, They're so informative. I love all the knowledge you give us to succeed in our journey. I love that you do updated videos too as it helps to let me know on the growth and how you've been finding looking after them. This is a great way to know if you want a plant in your collection. Thank you for sharing your knowledge much appreciated ☺️
Hey Shana, awww welcome to the channel, I am so glad you are enjoying 😊 🌿💚 yeah I am with you it's always good to have the updates to see how things have progressed 😁🌱🌿🪴🌴
Bubble-glazing......love it! Memo, thank you for always making me smile. You're the best.
Aloha Memo, from Maui…. Thank you for this updated Melano video. As always your information is very appreciated. 1) Purchased 4 small Melano plug starters in January, & have them planted around a single moss pole. Already climbing & putting out bigger leaves than my largest Mican leaves, so I’m happy. 2) Moss Poles: I’ve mixed 50% sphagnum moss, with 50% coco chips/chunks, as sphagnum is hard to get on Maui & expensive to ship. Coco chips are much much cheaper here. I find the mixed pole works virtually like a 100% sphagnum pole, but at a much lower cost for my location. 3) Subliminal Messaging: I’ve never heard of P. Esmeraldense. BUT!!! It’s right in the screen on virtually all your videos!!! You’ve single handedly made Esmeraldense “A Must Have”!!! Got one in January, a second yesterday, & a third is on order. All three will surround a single moss pole, SOON!!!
Mahalo, many Blessings & much Aloha……
Wow hi to Maui Al 😲😲😲 so cool that my videos are reaching Maui too 😁💚🌿 that is a great update thank you for sharing and also yeah 😅😅😅😅 sorry for the slight esmeraldense obsession, but I feel ya entirely as you can see from mine 😅😂 they are really awesome plants especially when they start getting huge 😍😍😍😍💚🌿
I use chunky aroid mix in my poles. Works well....can add moss to it or cut up small bits of coco choir matt. The thin stuff.
As always thank you Memo💚 Yesterday actually cut off the top of my very small one because the leaves were getting really tiny, today I’m making a few moss poles so that can get few of my climbers growing up, stuck the cutting in water see what happens ( not holding out too much hope)
Hey Kathy, ohhh yeH I know the feeling of doing that but not sure if it will make a difference, I will keep my fingers crossed for you 🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻💚🌿
Inregards to bulking out moss poles … you can buy a block of coco chips that requires soaking overnight and expand to may times the the amount from sphagnum uk - when its hydrated it comes out with chips and fibres - I’ve taken to mixing that 50/50 with sphagnum - it works!
Hi Memo, since you´ve still got the propagate (that unfortunately looks a little sad), why not put that on a moss pole and see if that grows better for you and/or is easier to propagate again. Comparig the two Melanochrysums would make a very interesting revieuw next year.
Your question about mixing the moss is quite interesting. Orchid bark was my first thought, but that rots eventually, when kept moist. Maybe coco chips or a coarse perlite might work. Will be interesting to experient with, when I get to making my own moss poles.
I fill my pole with coco coir and coco chips. Moisture retention is amazing and I use the clear plastic d shape pole. I think mine are 60cm long and stackable. There is a bit of weight to them though
check sidney plant guy, the melano is an excellent one for the chop and extend. that will save you the trouble of air layering as well
Ohhhh I will do for sure if I am not mistaken his one is huge. I might still have to airlayer this one time and then put it on a pile otherwise will have to make a huge pole for this one 😅😅😅😅🌿💚
@@Houseplantygoodness He mentioned he had a problem with it scaling up at first as well. He has a dedicated video on the melano
Memo, I'm with you on the price of moss. I made my first one a few months ago to the exact specifications of Sydney Plant Guy, and the three foot section came to about $10 US. I know he had a mediocre experiment with using just coco chips, and his friend P.J. who owns a nursery said he should have packed the chips in tightly. I only plan to have three poles, each a total of six feet tall, so I probably won't experiment. But I will look forward to reading about other peoples' experiences, just in case.
As always, thanks for taking the time to make your excellent videos.
Amazing thanks for sharing Dave this is very very interesting 🤔🙌😊💚🌿
I bought a small bit off live sphagnum. I keep it in a terrarium. I keep it in my prop terrarium. Sphagnum bogs are an amazing carbon sponge. Over harvesting is getting out of control and doing irreparable harm.
I use perlite in the center of my moss poles(it helps with costs and weight!) and I’ve been experimenting with tree fern fiber and coco chips mixed with moss.
I managed to pick up two nearly dead plants from a flower shop £5 each. Only three leaves on each plant in November. I have one plant with one leaf on it, and the second still has the three leaves but is just pushing out a new leaf. Yeah. Just hoping they will both grow this summer
I got an ittybittyteenietiny "rooted" Melanochrysum cutting and I've shoved it in my "ittybittyteenietiny greenhouse" (a cake stand) and it's still alive 😅
As for the DIY or lazy poles, since it's kind of hard to find sphagnum moss here, and it's quite expensive too, I make a sandwich of moss, bark and more moss. But I make a full pole, I skip the plastic on the back in hopes of getting a fuller plant in the future.
Have a wonderful evening!!
Hey Valium 👋👋👋 love the ittybittyteenietiny story 💚💚💚💚 also love the idea of a cake stand as a bit greenhouse 🙌🙌🙌🙌
Also love the idea of your style of moss pole. And yeah never thought about it but never found moss in Greece. The only place I have occasionally seen it, is in pet shops that deal with reptiles, they usually have some form of moss 💚🌿 but yeah I would imagine it might be ridiculously priced 😬😬😬😅😅😅
Moss and perlite for my bigger poles because the wet moss gets heavy and you will have to add more supports. My melano is not sizing up and I’ve had it for 2 years. I’ve chopped and propped many times hoping to get bigger leaves and the leaves on the top cut are at 4inches. So now I have 6 and they are all small.
Sounds like mine lol 💚
Hey Thelma and Sherry, I know the feeling, mine is the same 😅 😅 😅 😅 ohhh good shout on the perlite, years ago I came accross larger perlite chunks which could work freak, but can't find them now 🤔🤔🤔 need to do some investigating for sure 🕵️🕵️🕵️
Hi Memo! I actually chopped mine a few months ago and it hasn’t done anything! Will it ever start growing from the top again? 😅
my philodendron silver sword (that I've bought as tiny 10 cm plug) does that thing with the stem too - at the soil level stem has 4 mm and as it vines around the coir pole at the top it has a 16mm stem. it looks extremely silly.
EDIT:
Have you tried buying a bunch of moss from the nursery or some kind of garden center with outdoor plants and planting it in your yard? I live very close to the forest and the peat moss is taking over my yard, grows like massive fluffy carpet and after taking a whole shopping bag of it, I can barely see the "bald" spot it's so dense and spreads so easily. It's the only way to get it cheaply in Poland, because Sphagnum moss is pretty much unobtainable, unless ordering from abroad (or one could just yank it from the forest, I guess).
i use my aroids mix to fill my D-shape moss pole 😁
💌
Maybe you have solved your moss pole question already. If you have not, I make my own “trees” from a nice looking stick. It could be an inch in diameter. It doesn’t have to be huge. Then I take patches of sphagnum and make little islands of moss up the tree, wrapping it with a natural fiber jute string or fishing line would work too. Then for looks I place some green terrarium moss over the sphagnum and bind it there. You can usually get this moss from the reptile section of the pet store. It actually comes back to life when you water it. When I am done it looks like a little mossy stick ladder. For a 1 meter long pole I bet you would only use a cup or two of sphagnum. You could secure it either to a wall, or within the pot, if it is not too long, or to the outside of the pot. Personally I share your dislike of moss poles, for esthetics, for the quantity of moss used and because they are like a high rise for pest inhabitations. I actually heard Tom Croat talk about placing a stick in the pot and wetting it thoroughly once a month. He didn’t think moss poles were necessary either. I just spray mine down when I water and the plants like it just fine. It doesn’t have to stay wet all the time.
My moss poles are moss + tree fern fiber. Less hydrophobic and easier to keep moist
Ohhhh good tip, I need to see if I can get some tree fern fibre, I think it is tricky to get around here 🤔💚🌿
Generally, I agree about stupid large specimens being potentially poached. But for this one, I imagine that a poached plant would look pretty beat up. The ones I've seen in their natural habitats are a million lightyears away from the pristine conditions houseplant collectors have come to expect. And like in any industry, there are trend scouts. I wanna give those sellers the benefit of the doubt in this case.
Tbh, I actually prefer my micans over my melano... You get a similar look for far less money, normal room conditions, it's easier to grow and faster too. In hindsight, if I'd known, I would not have bothered.
Hey Jesseme, yeah I know a few people who have said the same thing actually. I do love my Micans too 😊 💚🌿
I use moss poles. And I use moss only in them. In fact if I could give one advice to my moss-pole-newbie-me, it would be to not buy the cheapest moss around. Because it will just mold on you and you don't want to buy cheap AND not cheap to replace the sh**
This is my challenge plant. Nemesis? I’ve killed 3. I keep trying. I’ve got 2 struggling in my fanciest plant cabinet right now. Getting real tired of their drama. I usually toss a plant if it can’t survive in what I can give it, but years ago I saw a video how “easy” these were. LIES!!!!
On the topic of poaching of the big mature plants - honest question: as far as google has told me, Melanochrysum is native to Colombia, not South East Asia.... if it was poached from the wild in Asia it would therefore be an invasive species, competing with the native ones... so why does it matter if they poach it off the wild in Asia instead of being grown by growers there??
With regard to growing melanochrysum - I've had my second one for over a year now. I got it at an online sale for 25€ and I've grown it in a no drainage glass vessel in my own self made pon (it's a coarser grade pon) I have it on a plastic sheet moss pole since I've first obtained it and it was up against my south east facing window supplemented by a sansi 24Watt grow light to give it 14 hours of light including during the winter. Average temperature in the summer was between 27 - 32°C and it never got lower than 18°C during the colder months.
Even in the winter I fertilize with every watering through the moss pole (sea tang fertilizer *Pflanzenkraft* 1,5 X the recommented ammount + cal mag *Xpert* 2X the recommended amount and sometimes after a systemic pest treatment I'll also mix Great White Microrrhyzal innoculants into the water). I live in Germany and my water pH is at around 7, so I'm currently experimenting with lowering the pH to around 5,5 to see how all my plants will react.
I bought it at the standard size you get it from stores nowadays (~ 20 cm long leaves) and after a year of growth it's doubled in leaf length, now stagnating at about 53cm in length (stagnation might be due to lower temps and also insufficient light, which I'll address in the upcoming weeks). Before it established itself into the pole, it was relatively slow and before it reached its catophyl stage I would get stuck/ ripped leaves. After the catophyl formed, it's been pushing out leaves as fast 1 leaf every 3-4 weeks non stop... with the only noticeable difference in the winter is that the leaves come out quickly, yet smaller than in the summer, take longer to harden off, however the plant is still gradually sizing up in leaf size.
In the year I've had it, it's been chopped in half once and would otherwise be over 2 meters tall.
I've had in the time I've had this plant a significant spider mite outbreak and while I did see webbing and mites on the backside of the leaves, I could barely spot any damage to its leaves - nothing comparable to the damage on my Alocasias at least. Thrips haven't been an issue for me, bc that was the reason my first plant died ( the first plant was my first rare hoseplant and my guinea pig so to say hahaha).
The only noticeable flaw with the way I'm growing mine with regard to my own expectations is that melanochrysum, like gloriosum, does not like to have it's roots significantly submerged in the water reservoir. Be it in no drainage or self watering. Even if your plant has water roots like mine your plant won't be happy. The issue with the water is that, despite me never having issues with root rot, the plant takes up too much water and the lower leaves will quickly start showing signs of yellowing along the veins margins, from the central vein, towards the leaf margin. To combat this, I let the reservoir of my vessel completely depleat and after watering, I don't let the reservoir sit higher than maybe 1,5 cm. The problem has subsided after doing this.
FYI: for the Germans in the comments. The melano is in the standard 20cm tall round glass vase from Depot.
Lastly - I, as of this moment still actively call juvinile melanochrysum (micans staged melanochrysum) as a melanocrisis and have yet to successfully grow one to the size of the one I have now and I always recommend any of my friends to get a medium sized one like I did....
Thanks for this awesome video series!! Always enjoy watching them 😇