I realize you might be confused with certain things I didn't elaborate on in the video, so here are some clarifications: The reason I gave up microfiber a few years ago was massive algae deposits, so the plan was to try it again, but covered up so light won't promote algae. The flowershop ran out of this sisal thing so I had to think of a different cover, such as bark. (Coco fiber is not available here, except on rods and liners and it kinda makes me cough, has a dusty smell, I am avoiding it after I used it for a while.. I didn't feel healthy around it lol). But since I needed to buy and cut some microfiber mops and had so little time, I bailed out on the microfiber and threw some moss instead. I also did not want to use it without a cover, cos it sticks soooo much to roots, I didn't want to risk damaging them in a month or so, when algae would take over. Links on this topic in description. I already had 50 litres of this bark around and, being that it's not orchiata, it actually gets wet and retains some water. So I skipped a few hours of sleep one night and did the job 😋 the surprise is the tap water thing though, I really had no choice and had to hydrate them, whatever the outcome. Well color me surprised, Vanda care just got a loooot easier. Tap water ftw! I might keep the medium, since it acidifies the water 😁 also watering at night is not an issue, I live on an island which is breezy by default and also preeeetty hot 😂
I would love to see how you go about making fertilizer nets! It sounds very interesting! Thank you so much for the wonderful orchid videos! When I found you school had taken over and I had seriously neglected my phalaenopsis. Watching your videos has improved my knowledge and reinvigorated my love for not just orchids but all plants! Thank you so much Danny for all of the wonderful videos! P.s. I’m glad things are getting better and I hope your bendy is recovering! Much love from Texas!
I live in N Fl. Very hot right now. My vandas hang in my citrus trees and get watered 3 times per day courtesy of my grass irrigation system with tap water with slow release fertilizer tea bags hanging above them and everything is growing and spiking like crazy.
With some failure to grow vandas without substrate, I have started to fill my vandas' pots with bark and chacoal mix for a year, and the result is good!
Southern Spain ... I use slow release fertilizer in ‘gift sachet string bags’ hanging within my bare root & mounted orchids ... when the pearls are spent, I can open the sachet and refill ... looks cute too 😊
Hi حبيب المصطفى ... i soak in the mornings for two hours and then spray until dripping wet early afternoon (summer) .. winter only soak once a day in the mornings ... hope that helps 🤗
I live in North Florida (USA) and I think we have similar weather to what you have. I really want to try this. I use tap water but also have a water softener its not RO water but I think its better than regular tap. I will give this a go specially now that its 100ºF/38º outside here. Its brutal for vandas outside.
J.A. Torres Depending on how many you have you might want to try soaking them in 5 gallon paint buckets from Lowe’s or Home Depot. I only have two large ones so I reuse the water until the next rain then refresh. (I have a bucket for each-they aren’t sharing.) I also have some baby vandas that I put all of them into the same bucket at the same time that has about an inch or so of water and let them soak. I’m confident they are healthy otherwise i wouldn’t share the water. One is in a small plastic basket without a hanger and I have a terra cotta dish under it that I also fill with water. It gets absorbed and/or evaporates before the end of day as it’s not deep and the roots are loving it. But it only works on the babies. I live in south Mississippi.
Don’t confuse softened and RO water. Most softeners are ion exchangers that swap sodium for calcium, calcium compounds being mostly less soluble than the sodium equivalents. That means you don’t get the scale on kettles, etc, but the TDS is the same as before. RO removes ions and reduces the TDS.
@@Rockdoc2174 oh wow. So the soft water will have a higher concentration of salts? Didnt think about that. I gonna have to get an RO. Ill check on pricing to see if its feasable. Thank you so much for the help. This helps a lot. I'll will try to collect rain water if we ge some here its been dry but ill be ready.
Hi OrchidGirl thank you for the up date on Vandas, I got one yester day it is a Tolu TON 2 very small about 3 ins by 4ins .I haven't seen any as small as this
Enjoy your videos so much! Thank you! Was wondering how you get vandas to produce keikis? I have about 7-8. And yet to have any keikis😞 Thanks in advance!
I wonder if orchiata would work well? It would last quite a long time. I filled my Vanda Pachara Delight basket with lava rocks and air plants, but warm weather has yet to hit Quebec so time will tell. I'll try bark if it needs a boost :) Thanks for the idea!
Oh yes I’d love for you to film I love Vanda I have 2 only. And the microfiber is it just a piece of cloth made of microfiber? 🤔. I’d love to see more about Vanda Orchids 🦚🎍🍀 I just watched the microfiber video so I know now! About the algae issue, I ordered an got a blue Vanda. It has thick algae I guess that’s what it is, its hairy an on roots close to plant not on hanging down roots. Is that bad? 🤔 If it is please tell me what I should do about it! Mine is blooming size never bloom yet but they said very close. I’ve been misting it at least 2times a day. But today soaked it roots they turned green no green tip. If I keep this up should I start to see green tips an that will be a good thing right? 🤔 You are very good at making videos very knowledgeable with Orchids you seem to know everything an more 😃 👍🏻 how long do you hose your Vanda’s do you use a sprayer attached to end of hose? Oh yes you will show us how you do this Ok 👌🏼 I’ll look to see if u have more videos on Vanda. 😊
Hy Danny, nice video. I am going to do the same and put my vandas from in the plastic baskets, with some coconut fiber and bark, I can not find here wooden basket you use, but I'd like to know if you removed the small plastic baskets vandas usually have when you buy them.
Hi Dani, Speaking of watering Vanda aerial roots, what do you do for your Phalaenopsis aerial roots? Do they ever get watered? Thanks for your reply...
So glad to see that your Vandas are doing well. I recently potted up my rhyncostylis in medium bark and a very aerated clear cone pot. They are doing better than just hanging in the garden without medium. (They grow in a shade cloth covered lanai.) One is even blooming. Sometimes just a simple change can make a world of difference. For the fertilizer bags you should check out Maria Young's Orchid Adventures on RUclips. She buys wedding favor bags (they are made out of organza fabric, made in China - available from Amazon. Very cheap.) I use her suggestion during the summer months when it is so hot/humid here in s. FL USA. I put a measured amount of a slow release fertilizer that will last about 6 months in each bag. Each plant gets one. They get a small amount of fertilizer with each watering. Makes my life much easier and helps me still LOVE the orchids during this time of year.
Hi MissOrchidGirl. I bought a vanda plant in December and hung it outside on my balcony as advised by the seller. I was told to water it once a month, but it didn't seem appropriate so I used to spray water onto it every 3rd or 4th day. By the end of February, the temperature here starts going upto 40 degree celsius hence I shifted the plant into a container with water. Things were going fine till I added some fertilizer to the pot 2 weeks back and then all the leaves turned yellow and started falling off. I took the plant out of the container and again started hanging it in my balcony and am dipping it in water twice a day. Will my plant be ok now. I have not seen anything promising happening yet. What do I do now? Some suggestions please?
I live in SW Florida & have several vanda's that I hung in my magnolia tree so they get some shade from the hot sun here. When it is dry here I spray with water from the hose. During our wet season (summer). I do not water at all. I occasionally fertilize via a spray method. Now they are all doing well, minus losing some lower leaves, but their root system is unbelievable. They have all attached themselves to the tree. So if I want to enjoy their flowers I need to look up into my tree. I am considering eventually removing them but do not want to kill them. Any suggestions on how to do this without killing the plants. I believe I have 4 or 5 plants, 2 are over 24" tall.
Your water quality sounds similar to mine in Florida. I have between 250-300 ppm from the tap with a pH of 8. Most of the ppm in Florida comes from calcium carbonate from the limestone aquafers so it's well tolerated by the plants. I don't have RO so I use my tap water and just adjust the pH down with a little bit of lemon juice. Since I started pH adjusting my water I noticed a big improvement in the nutrient deficiencies I had in all of my collection. Its probably a method that a lot of people could try if they need to make their tap water work.
So... I am assuming this watering is ok with your hot weather? I don’t live in hot weather (zone 8b) so I guess I can’t do that. Would be super easy though... but, my area’s water is soft so I guess that’s a trade off. Anyway, I am curious about your seedlings over the years... are any of your blooming size orchids grown from seedling under your care? If so which ones? And how long did they take?
I figure that tap water is not as harsh on vandas (I have 8+1) because (almost) no media == less place for deposits to form. I still use RO for the fertilizer spray, but the regular watering ... it's fine. Even with our water being so hard you can make limestone sculptures out of the stuff you can find in the kettle.
I use 5 gallon buckets to soak my vandas. I get them at my local home improvement store and they are not expensive. I also use them to catch rain water. Now, I know you’re not suppose to share water and I don’t have many vandas. However, it might be something you want to rotate in. Instead of watering twice/day you can soak once. I leave mine a minimum of 5 mins, 15 is best and rarely even longer. I am even able to skip a day here and there. (We’ve been in the upper 90s F). I know it’s not something you can do for every plant every day, but you can get two or three buckets and then rotate your plants through the week or so, emptying the water between each plant. You could add fertilizer or not to the bucket water or just micro nutrients. It’s a thought.
Hi, the problem is that I have over 30 Vandas and watering in the bucket (what I was doing until now) took a loooooot since they need soaking (no medium). With medium they would just lose it in the buckets. I also cannot use too many buckets and the osmosis would not be enough. It's also too much physical work at this point in the heat :p this worked for my balcony days you see in my watering tutorial, but I had 5 Vandas back then, bare rooted :p
When you say the bark is from zoomed, do you mean it's the type for a terrarium? I've had horrendous experience with terrarium mixes in the past - bark, coconut, moss - they have it all, BUT I suspect there is a herbicide mixed up in there because all sorts of different plants got severe chlorisis and everything from terrestrial orchids to African violets went completely south. Mind you, it took a few months to notice the effect maybe because I always kept a core of the original medium. My media were from Terra dragon but I had such great losses that I don't think I'll ever trust a terrarium medium again...
I'm lazy, I bought some small mesh gift bags off Amazon and used those to make the fertilizer satchels instead of making my own baggies. The downside is they are whatever size they are. The plus side, I don't have to diy my own little baggies.
Hey Dani, I had some vanda drama myself at the end of last summer, but that’s a whole other video, lol. But I might have a source for you to purchase what they call “vegefiber”. I’ve used it myself to line baskets and it works great. Depending on the size of the media you intend on using with it, the fiber itself can be stretched or thinned out so a little goes a long way. ;) Here is the link to the product from a website here in Spain. Hope it helps ;) www.todorquidea.com/es/otros-soportes/157-vegefibra.html
@@MissOrchidGirl I don't, but there's an email address in the description of the product, in case you were interested in larger quantities, which you could probably use to ask them about that. I've used it and still do if i need to use a wooden basket and haven't had to replace it in 2 yrs so far. Good luck ;))
I realize you might be confused with certain things I didn't elaborate on in the video, so here are some clarifications: The reason I gave up microfiber a few years ago was massive algae deposits, so the plan was to try it again, but covered up so light won't promote algae. The flowershop ran out of this sisal thing so I had to think of a different cover, such as bark. (Coco fiber is not available here, except on rods and liners and it kinda makes me cough, has a dusty smell, I am avoiding it after I used it for a while.. I didn't feel healthy around it lol). But since I needed to buy and cut some microfiber mops and had so little time, I bailed out on the microfiber and threw some moss instead. I also did not want to use it without a cover, cos it sticks soooo much to roots, I didn't want to risk damaging them in a month or so, when algae would take over. Links on this topic in description. I already had 50 litres of this bark around and, being that it's not orchiata, it actually gets wet and retains some water. So I skipped a few hours of sleep one night and did the job 😋 the surprise is the tap water thing though, I really had no choice and had to hydrate them, whatever the outcome. Well color me surprised, Vanda care just got a loooot easier. Tap water ftw! I might keep the medium, since it acidifies the water 😁 also watering at night is not an issue, I live on an island which is breezy by default and also preeeetty hot 😂
I love the methodical approach you take to orchid care but I really Love this video as it’s life! Thank you for keeping it real! 🥰
I would love to see how you go about making fertilizer nets! It sounds very interesting!
Thank you so much for the wonderful orchid videos! When I found you school had taken over and I had seriously neglected my phalaenopsis. Watching your videos has improved my knowledge and reinvigorated my love for not just orchids but all plants!
Thank you so much Danny for all of the wonderful videos!
P.s. I’m glad things are getting better and I hope your bendy is recovering! Much love from Texas!
I adore you and your videos so much thanks so being my guru!! Gonna grab some merch I needs a new hoodie!
Very informative!!
Love this tips 🤩
I live in N Fl. Very hot right now. My vandas hang in my citrus trees and get watered 3 times per day courtesy of my grass irrigation system with tap water with slow release fertilizer tea bags hanging above them and everything is growing and spiking like crazy.
With some failure to grow vandas without substrate, I have started to fill my vandas' pots with bark and chacoal mix for a year, and the result is good!
Thank Gooooood for good ol' tap water! They look so good!
I have a whole load of air plants, I love them! They flower up so pretty
Southern Spain ... I use slow release fertilizer in ‘gift sachet string bags’ hanging within my bare root & mounted orchids ... when the pearls are spent, I can open the sachet and refill ... looks cute too 😊
Hi حبيب المصطفى ... i soak in the mornings for two hours and then spray until dripping wet early afternoon (summer) .. winter only soak once a day in the mornings ... hope that helps 🤗
It sucks when houseguests stay more than a few days (or a week - MAX!) and your home gets chaotic and neglected. I'm glad you sorted your plants out.
I live in North Florida (USA) and I think we have similar weather to what you have. I really want to try this. I use tap water but also have a water softener its not RO water but I think its better than regular tap. I will give this a go specially now that its 100ºF/38º outside here. Its brutal for vandas outside.
J.A. Torres Depending on how many you have you might want to try soaking them in 5 gallon paint buckets from Lowe’s or Home Depot. I only have two large ones so I reuse the water until the next rain then refresh. (I have a bucket for each-they aren’t sharing.) I also have some baby vandas that I put all of them into the same bucket at the same time that has about an inch or so of water and let them soak. I’m confident they are healthy otherwise i wouldn’t share the water. One is in a small plastic basket without a hanger and I have a terra cotta dish under it that I also fill with water. It gets absorbed and/or evaporates before the end of day as it’s not deep and the roots are loving it. But it only works on the babies. I live in south Mississippi.
Don’t confuse softened and RO water. Most softeners are ion exchangers that swap sodium for calcium, calcium compounds being mostly less soluble than the sodium equivalents. That means you don’t get the scale on kettles, etc, but the TDS is the same as before. RO removes ions and reduces the TDS.
@@tanyastelly6243 not getting a lot of rain here lately but will definitely get some buckets to be ready. Thank you.
@@Rockdoc2174 oh wow. So the soft water will have a higher concentration of salts? Didnt think about that. I gonna have to get an RO. Ill check on pricing to see if its feasable. Thank you so much for the help. This helps a lot. I'll will try to collect rain water if we ge some here its been dry but ill be ready.
J.A. Torres Today is a collection day for me for sure. 100% chance. Past two weeks have been dry. Glad for the rain.
Wow 3 spikes! That's impressive
i just setup for my neofinetia like your basket, hope she'd happy and bloom a lot
Hi OrchidGirl thank you for the up date on Vandas, I got one yester day it is a Tolu TON 2 very small about 3 ins by 4ins .I haven't seen any as small as this
Hi ...I like your videos I do have a question ? Why is it not a good idea to place your vanda in leca? Tku Diane
Enjoy your videos so much! Thank you! Was wondering how you get vandas to produce keikis? I have about 7-8. And yet to have any keikis😞 Thanks in advance!
I wonder if orchiata would work well? It would last quite a long time. I filled my Vanda Pachara Delight basket with lava rocks and air plants, but warm weather has yet to hit Quebec so time will tell. I'll try bark if it needs a boost :) Thanks for the idea!
I would love to see the slow release fertilizer set up
Oh yes I’d love for you to film I love Vanda I have 2 only. And the microfiber is it just a piece of cloth made of microfiber? 🤔. I’d love to see more about Vanda Orchids 🦚🎍🍀 I just watched the microfiber video so I know now! About the algae issue, I ordered an got a blue Vanda. It has thick algae I guess that’s what it is, its hairy an on roots close to plant not on hanging down roots. Is that bad? 🤔 If it is please tell me what I should do about it! Mine is blooming size never bloom yet but they said very close. I’ve been misting it at least 2times a day. But today soaked it roots they turned green no green tip. If I keep this up should I start to see green tips an that will be a good thing right? 🤔 You are very good at making videos very knowledgeable with Orchids you seem to know everything an more 😃 👍🏻 how long do you hose your Vanda’s do you use a sprayer attached to end of hose? Oh yes you will show us how you do this Ok 👌🏼 I’ll look to see if u have more videos on Vanda. 😊
Hy Danny, nice video. I am going to do the same and put my vandas from in the plastic baskets, with some coconut fiber and bark, I can not find here wooden basket you use, but I'd like to know if you removed the small plastic baskets vandas usually have when you buy them.
Hi Dani, Speaking of watering Vanda aerial roots, what do you do for your Phalaenopsis aerial roots? Do they ever get watered? Thanks for your reply...
Hi Again, would rain water be as good and I like your new baskets how are they made.(im in Jamaica)
Hi Dani , how often would you water your vandas in winter with the bark in the basket . Do you water the same as summer ?
So glad to see that your Vandas are doing well. I recently potted up my rhyncostylis in medium bark and a very aerated clear cone pot. They are doing better than just hanging in the garden without medium. (They grow in a shade cloth covered lanai.) One is even blooming. Sometimes just a simple change can make a world of difference. For the fertilizer bags you should check out Maria Young's Orchid Adventures on RUclips. She buys wedding favor bags (they are made out of organza fabric, made in China - available from Amazon. Very cheap.) I use her suggestion during the summer months when it is so hot/humid here in s. FL USA. I put a measured amount of a slow release fertilizer that will last about 6 months in each bag. Each plant gets one. They get a small amount of fertilizer with each watering. Makes my life much easier and helps me still LOVE the orchids during this time of year.
Hi MissOrchidGirl. I bought a vanda plant in December and hung it outside on my balcony as advised by the seller. I was told to water it once a month, but it didn't seem appropriate so I used to spray water onto it every 3rd or 4th day. By the end of February, the temperature here starts going upto 40 degree celsius hence I shifted the plant into a container with water. Things were going fine till I added some fertilizer to the pot 2 weeks back and then all the leaves turned yellow and started falling off. I took the plant out of the container and again started hanging it in my balcony and am dipping it in water twice a day. Will my plant be ok now. I have not seen anything promising happening yet. What do I do now? Some suggestions please?
I live in SW Florida & have several vanda's that I hung in my magnolia tree so they get some shade from the hot sun here. When it is dry here I spray with water from the hose. During our wet season (summer). I do not water at all. I occasionally fertilize via a spray method. Now they are all doing well, minus losing some lower leaves, but their root system is unbelievable. They have all attached themselves to the tree. So if I want to enjoy their flowers I need to look up into my tree. I am considering eventually removing them but do not want to kill them. Any suggestions on how to do this without killing the plants. I believe I have 4 or 5 plants, 2 are over 24" tall.
Hiiii
Im wondering if you can use the fiber you find on Palm Trees?
Your water quality sounds similar to mine in Florida. I have between 250-300 ppm from the tap with a pH of 8. Most of the ppm in Florida comes from calcium carbonate from the limestone aquafers so it's well tolerated by the plants. I don't have RO so I use my tap water and just adjust the pH down with a little bit of lemon juice. Since I started pH adjusting my water I noticed a big improvement in the nutrient deficiencies I had in all of my collection. Its probably a method that a lot of people could try if they need to make their tap water work.
So... I am assuming this watering is ok with your hot weather? I don’t live in hot weather (zone 8b) so I guess I can’t do that. Would be super easy though... but, my area’s water is soft so I guess that’s a trade off. Anyway, I am curious about your seedlings over the years... are any of your blooming size orchids grown from seedling under your care? If so which ones? And how long did they take?
The last orchid in the vid has black patches on the leaves. Was this an old fungal thing, or sun freckles?
I figure that tap water is not as harsh on vandas (I have 8+1) because (almost) no media == less place for deposits to form. I still use RO for the fertilizer spray, but the regular watering ... it's fine. Even with our water being so hard you can make limestone sculptures out of the stuff you can find in the kettle.
I use 5 gallon buckets to soak my vandas. I get them at my local home improvement store and they are not expensive. I also use them to catch rain water. Now, I know you’re not suppose to share water and I don’t have many vandas. However, it might be something you want to rotate in. Instead of watering twice/day you can soak once. I leave mine a minimum of 5 mins, 15 is best and rarely even longer. I am even able to skip a day here and there. (We’ve been in the upper 90s F). I know it’s not something you can do for every plant every day, but you can get two or three buckets and then rotate your plants through the week or so, emptying the water between each plant. You could add fertilizer or not to the bucket water or just micro nutrients. It’s a thought.
Hi, the problem is that I have over 30 Vandas and watering in the bucket (what I was doing until now) took a loooooot since they need soaking (no medium). With medium they would just lose it in the buckets. I also cannot use too many buckets and the osmosis would not be enough. It's also too much physical work at this point in the heat :p this worked for my balcony days you see in my watering tutorial, but I had 5 Vandas back then, bare rooted :p
They are big orchid but there’s no flowers, why?
When you say the bark is from zoomed, do you mean it's the type for a terrarium? I've had horrendous experience with terrarium mixes in the past - bark, coconut, moss - they have it all, BUT I suspect there is a herbicide mixed up in there because all sorts of different plants got severe chlorisis and everything from terrestrial orchids to African violets went completely south. Mind you, it took a few months to notice the effect maybe because I always kept a core of the original medium. My media were from Terra dragon but I had such great losses that I don't think I'll ever trust a terrarium medium again...
Hi, yep it's the terrarium one :)
I'm lazy, I bought some small mesh gift bags off Amazon and used those to make the fertilizer satchels instead of making my own baggies. The downside is they are whatever size they are. The plus side, I don't have to diy my own little baggies.
Try ascocentrum aurianticum its orange but tiny and cute
Where do you live and where are you from?
With respect to the slow release fertilizer, I just sprinkle it on the medium and let it do its thing every watering.
Until the text appeared, I was on the edge of my seat on what "sizzle fibre" could be 😂
Hey Dani, I had some vanda drama myself at the end of last summer, but that’s a whole other video, lol. But I might have a source for you to purchase what they call “vegefiber”. I’ve used it myself to line baskets and it works great. Depending on the size of the media you intend on using with it, the fiber itself can be stretched or thinned out so a little goes a long way. ;) Here is the link to the product from a website here in Spain. Hope it helps ;) www.todorquidea.com/es/otros-soportes/157-vegefibra.html
Oh that looks interesting, thanks for the info :D do you know how fast it degrades by any chance?
@@MissOrchidGirl I don't, but there's an email address in the description of the product, in case you were interested in larger quantities, which you could probably use to ask them about that. I've used it and still do if i need to use a wooden basket and haven't had to replace it in 2 yrs so far. Good luck ;))
Good to know, thanks :D