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Eric Muehlbauer
Guest
Well, its a new year, and I've have now been growing some plants in SH for 6 months or so...so I felt I could now give an update on my experience. I used the old Prime agra from Ray...I only planted a very few paphs in SH...so far, not thrilled. A Maudiae type immediately responded with increased leaf turgor (a universal response, I must admit...)...but no growth of any kind. When I brought it indoors, it died within weeks...post-mortem showed no root growth at all, and fewer roots than when first planted....another paph, Henrietta Fujiwara, has been stable...no growth on top or bottom. My one success was Paph Honey....lots of root growth, but no really major top growth. My biggest surprise was with phrags...i expected them to really take off. Instead, I saw nothing impressive for the most part. Leaves are good, but growth was slow to average...with no really visible new root growth. Only 2 phrags responded with vigorous root growth, growing throughout the media, into the reservoir, and adding lots of new leaves. Still, this is not anything more than I see in my usual phrag bark mix..I did not fertilize them more than other phrags, and continually topped off with fresh water. My phrag fertilizer is straight MSU,about 1/4 tsp/gal, weekly in summer and under lights, bi-weekly in winter, plain water about 5 days/week. I found that SH needs watering (for phrags) about as frequently as my bark based plants...Only 2 non-slipper plants went into SH...and here I was VERY impressed...an Odontioda hybrid filled the rocks with roots, and I eventually plan to put my other similar crosses into SH. A phal schilleriana has been in SH only about 2 months, and already has shown better root growth than I have seen on a phal in years. I definitely plan to order more Prime Agra, after my wallet recovers from the holidays...I have to admit that it is certainly easy and fast potting, even though I don't find those plastic cups and chinese take-out soup containers to be attractive pots...and I will continue to experiment with it...certainly, while I have not been impressed by phrags in SH, none have done badly...just not as good as expected, for most. I think eventually, all my odont's will go into SH, and I'll continue to use it on phrags, if only for convenience. I will occasionally use it on paphs...I certainly didn't try it on enough to really know....and I'll continue to post updates as I gain experience...Take care, Eric