Day 3 (not dead yet!)

[Heather]

Well, I took the plunge, since no one else would admit to trying it, I figure I might as well be the one to answer my own question.

I'm putting my long petaled Phrag. species into S/H.
So far, I just have a warscewiczeanum seedling in, and so far, it is doing just fine, though I am keeping a close watch on it. Tomorrow I'll probably move a few of the others over too.

I'll keep an update going should anything drastically go afoul but hopefully this will be a positive experience for us all.

Wish me luck!

 

[Marco]

Hey sounds cool. Please do keep us posted on the status.

Thanks a bunch.

 

[Carol]

Hi, I have 35 paphs and all my phrags, twelve, potted in s/h. The best advice that I can give you, is to pot when you see those root bumps starting to show. I have a few recent paph purchases that I have unpotted and see no active roots appearing. They will wait until I see that kind of growth. It seems to be a sure thing when that happens. I have an old Paph Maudiae 'Magnificum' that has just opened, and to me it appears to be its best showing so far since growing in s/h.

 

[Jon in SW Ohio]

I give it another 3 days.

J/K of course! I would imagine it would do well. Did you make your own pots? I'm still hesitant to go completely s/h instead of just semi s/h...although watering every other day gets a little tedious with all the other things to do.

Keep us posted!

Jon
________
Mercedes-benz u.s. international

 

[Stephan]

Heather

I've got about 30 different plants in S/H at this time. From Phrags to Sarcs. Still very much in the "look and see" phase. I have a phrag Praying Mantis in S/H and a seedling P boisseierianum var czerwiakowianum (don't really know how big they grow) that are doing quite well thank you very much I also have a Paph Limidolli (as well as other paphs) in S/H which is currently in spike so I expect a picture of the (hopefully two flowers) will grace these pages in the future.

I have transferred way more than that to S/H - some I lost, some I chickened out on and others simply faded away. In all successful cases the plants were either in active or burgeoning growth. Technically all plants should take to S/H under the right circumstances. But, like people, some plants just don't wanna

Cheers
Stephan

 

[Park Bear]

most of all of my plants are in s/h and they are all doing fine...paphs, phrags, cats, bulbos.....

 

[Heather]

I'm not concerned really about putting my plants in S/H in general, but I haven't found one person who has admitted to trying to grow one of the long-petaled Phrag. caudatum type species in it. So, that was really the focus of my post.

 

[littlefrog]

I have some in semihydro (diatomite).

:viking:

Couldn't say they were doing any more spectacularly than the others. Not that I have that many long petal phrags. I haven't really taken the time to really compare them, though.

 

[bwester]

I havent tried a long petaled either, but all my others are in it. I just might try it though. I like that when I was sick I could neglect them a bit and be rewarded with a spike

 

[SlipperFan]

I've tried it. After awhile, they didn't seem to like it. That's also true of some of my others.

 

[Heather]

They've all been in S/H for a couple weeks now. So far so good...

 

[Marco]

did you check the roots yet?

 

[Heather]

yep. a couple pots have some of the webby crap in them but nothing major. Several (like my crazy div from Chuck Acker) are putting out new roots already. The long petaled species look fine though, those are the ones I was super concerned about.

 

[gary]

Heather: I must have missed this thread when you started it. All my long petals are in SH (FirstRays stuff). My wallisii is sending up a spike and they all have good roots.

As for the crappy webby stuff, my experience had been that it is bad news what ever the medium. You might want to consider taking the plant out of the pot, cleaning it off and hitting it with Physan or peroxide to kill the fungus.

BTW, WRT SH, I would love for diatomite to work, I can pick it up locally here in Buffalo. But for me the jury is still out.

Good growing,
gary

 

[Jmoney]

I've had wallisii in s/h before. one loved it, one absolutely hated it and rotted its roots. similar to the dichotomy I get with a lot of slippers--most take well to it but a few despise it.

 

[jaybird1582]

guys what is s/h

hello my name is jay and im reading some of thes and wanted to know what were talking about ? s/h im not sure what that is

 

[Heather]

Gary - yes, once I get settled in the new place, if the peroxide I've been using hasn't worked, I'll be unpotting, cleaning and repotting. Hopefully it can wait 10 days.

Jason - yep. Time will tell. I know where I can get others if these tank, but I'm hoping they won't.

Jaybird - welcome!
S/H is Semi-Hydroponics and Ray's site, www.firstrays.com is probably the best resource around for information on the method (though there is a fair amount of info here if you feel like searching.)

 

[Ron-NY]

I don't have my long petaled ones in it but most of my other Phrags are, many of Catts too and my dend kingianum collection also.

 

[SlipperFan]

I had real good luck with all my Phrags in S/H for a couple of years, but then they started deteriorating. Now I have almost all of them in a diatomite/coconut chip/sponge rock/charcoal mixture, and they are recovering nicely. Today, I just unpotted one that had been doing well in S/H and so had been repotted in it this Spring. I didn't like the quality of the flower this time, and the leaves looked droopy. When I unpotted it, I saw that the roots were starting to deteriorate, so now it is in the diatomite mix. Go figure...

Welcome to the forum, Jaybird.

 

[gore42]

For what it's worth, I've been experimenting with S/H for the past 10 months or so with my phrags, and have had mixed results. I put a couple of Phrag Giganteums in it, and they seemed ok for a few weeks, then died before I noticed that they were faltering (seedlings).

My fischeri species didn't do well in it either, but my Twilight x fischeri are absolutely thriving. They have grown more quickly for me in S/H than any of my seedlings have ever grown before. Phrag China Dragon 4N has been mixed... some of them have done fine, but most of them don't like it and are being potted back into bark. Spme of my Franz Glantz have been in S/H for about 4 months and are doing quite well.

- Matt