greentoe, 1) watering frequency... al has said over and over on this forum that he waters according to his plants' needs, and that this is often around every three days. ray barkalow recommends watering once a week, or at a minimum every 14 days, even if a particular plant still has water in its reservoir. this means watering one half to one quarter as often. if you are seeing information from ray that conflicts with this, please post some links, because this is what i remember from reading his websites and orchid forum posts years ago. 2) dan's watering frequency... the critical thing in semi-hydro is keeping a nutrient water source in the bottom of the grow pot. the media needs to stay damp. however, this level needs to be relatively low in the pot so that there is still plenty of 'airy' media above the water for the plant to grow its roots. this water level should be about a fifth the height of the grow pot. it is NOT ok to add water above this line to try to reduce your watering frequency... but it IS ok to add a wider water tray for the grow pot to sit in. the larger tray can hold a larger volume of water, and so you can reduce your watering frequency. just be sure to only ever have a water level height at the proper place. in my case, i set my plants in saucers that are only a tad bigger than the grow pot. these saucers will hold enough water for about a week and a half or so. but, when i travel, i move the plant, in its grow pot, to partly covered trays that hold a much larger volume of water. 6" pots go into those disposable salad boxes with a hole cut in the top to accommodate the pot. and the large pots 10+" go into 12" by 18" plastic trays i found in the organizer section of a big box store. i loosely cover the top with painter's plastic to cut down on evaporation. then i fill them with water/nutrients to the same 1" for small plants or 2" for large plants as i usually do with the smaller trays. with this set up, my plants can easily go 3 to 4+ weeks before they need watering again. the reason i don't leave my plants like this all the time is that ray, and many other semi-hydro folks, including companies who manufacture the media, believe that most plants are healthier with a water level that rises and falls more frequently... such as every week or two. the idea is that a falling water level will pull oxygen into the root zone. a few of my plants, such as some Homalomena "Emerald Gem"s, could care less, but a few of my variegated Aglaonemas lost some of their good looks during a 1 to 2 year period when i was away from the house a lot, and they remained in the 'vacation' trays most of the time. none of them died or anything... but their leaf color was faded looking. they bounced back when moved back into their normal trays. 3) evaporation... remember that most of what ray has written concerns his method for growing orchids in a humid greenhouse. in a dry, indoor home, surface evaporation will be much greater. however, as mentioned earlier, the media surface will dry and act as a kind of mulch of sorts. i, like petrushka, have begun to add a 1/2" or so layer of gravel to the surface of the hydroton. it sounds like my gravel may be a bit larger than hers, but it will work the same. the kind i use is sold as a decorative polished gravel and the pieces are about the size of the hydroton. now, in my case, i'm not doing this to reduce watering frequency (and it won't change it much, if it all). i'm doing it because i think it looks nicer... and most importantly, to help reduce salt accumulation in the media. salt deposits at sites of evaporation, and reducing evaporation will therefore reduce salt deposition. even with this, i still flush all my pots in the shower, or outdoors, every 3 months at least. 4) watering volume... if you read and follow rays watering instructions, you will burn through a LOT of water. his watering instructions are to fill the grow cups (that have two small holes about an inch up from the bottom) to the top with a running stream of nutrient water, and then let the excess drain out through the holes. his plants are beautiful and he has been doing this for years. so his method works. however, to me, this seems like such a waste of water. also, if you search for forum posts where ray talks about his own indoor houseplants, he doesn't water the same way. he merely waters until he has a little flow out of the overflow holes... and then every month or two, he takes the pots to the sink and gives them a good flush with water to prevent salt accumulation. he said that this seems good enough for most house plants. he believes that they aren't as salt sensitive as some orchids. also, houseplants are growing and respiring at a much lower rate than actively growing plants in a much higher light greenhouse. 5) as for 'water roots' versus 'air roots' and such... the short answer is that as dan and petrushka mentioned above, roots will grow down into the water. what you don't want to do is drown the "air roots" by raising the water level too high. they're not used to this. also, for most of my plants (primarily aglaonemas), their soil roots survived the move to S/H just fine. very, very few roots died during the transition. most of the time i don't even tent the plants (though i did water the media more frequently to keep it a bit damper than normal. thinner leaved plants would likely appreciate a little extra humidity though. 6) how i water... first, i never let my plants go dry. if i see a tray that's empty or very low, i usually water all of the plants so that i can forget all of them until next time to water. i don't walk around every two or three days checking on how 'everyone' is doing. when i water, i dump out any remaining nutrient water in the water tray, and then re-fill to the proper water level with fresh solution. never, ever just "top up" your remaining water to the proper level because salts will accumulate. and, as i said, flush with plain water from time to time as well. oh, and i place a piece of blue tape with the level marked on the outside of the drip tray in case anyone else ever needs to water my plants for me. if someone else is watering, this is the only time i 'top up'. i just tell them to water until the water is up to the line. easy, peasy. even a 5th grader can water my plants now. for feeding and watering my plants, i add 1 tsp of Dyna Grow Foliage Pro 9-3-6 to 1 gallon of water. i just use tap water, which here in portland or, is pretty decent tap water. i don't adjust pH or anything. our water is very soft, and a bit on the acidic side. folks who live in areas with hard water will likely accumulate minerals on their ceramic media faster. you might want to try to water with rain water or distilled water instead. you also might be fine as long as you're even more careful about flushing. well, and a gravel top dress might help as well. do NOT use softened water on your s/h plants. i hope some of this helps. i really like this method of growing houseplants. it takes the guess work out of watering... cheers, nancy

ok, here is the deal. My veggie garden before I planted had mixed clay/sand mix. I uprooted some roses. added 4" of composted manure and 4" of kellong organic garden soil. then I planted tomatoes, peppers, eggplants that all did quite well. I even added some grass clippings that has decomposed (almost). My plan was to pour 1 gal of diluted tea into the roots of each of the plants. tree roots do act as organic matter no? regardless, with what I have added to soil over 3 months ago, do you think it has enough organic matter for tea to work? I plan on picking it up tomorrow. plan to to get 2 gallons of fresh concentrated and dilute 50% of what manufacturer says and its safe to do that. I also want to use it for my roses. Thoughts?

I don't have a meter, I will try to get one soon. I know I'm going to have to support the toms as they grow, right now I've only got about 4 out of 17 doing well. I'm pretty sure that my nutrient is WAY to concentrated and lacking in some some things. I JUST got my nutrients from hydro-gardens in the mail today. I think using real nutes w/ their mixing instructions should help me very much. I'm going to go ahead and make that famous "11 plant system" here shortly soon as well, just for fun. I'll use something other than cans...bottles or more likely plastic cups, they're a little taller. And right now I'm letting it run 24/7, there's a lot of turbulence where the nutrient goes back in the tank, so I think it's oxygenated enough, but depth and flow rate concern me w/ oxygen. I found another forum that helped me a little bit, but I'll be happy to post here as well. Thanks for the reply, I'm hoping for big things from these better nutes. ~Clark

> I prefer rooting in a permanent pot as well due to less disturbing of roots. I just thought of how to reconcile the desire for them to share their rooting hormones (if that even happens and if it's beneficial) with the goal of minimal repotting and root disturbance, as well as not entangling their roots. It can look something like this: Cuttings would be in their individual containers in a hydro medium, but with a layer of water underneath in the tray, through which the hormones can be shared. They can live there indefinitely or can be repotted into your favorite medium once rooted, weakly or very strongly, because it's going to be a while before they get really entangled into a rot mess underneath - and even then the roots inside the pot do not have to be disturbed. Communal pot rooters, do you see any disadvantages with this? I guess this does take more space than communal pots. Even with tiny 2" pots, cuttings are 4" away on average. They can be closer in a communal pot. But if you do not have space for 2" pots, then what are you doing rooting all those cuttings anyway? - this would be my question. > 3. Less need to hover. It takes longer for a communal S/H container to dry out than a 2.5" pot. That's a good point. I'll have to watch out for that if rooting in individual pots - especially if they are not sitting in water. I plan to put them into a container though, and drying out there will be much slower than out in the open. > I will use a bag over the top of an individual potted plant from time to time. Me too, when the plant is taller than my rubbermaid, or if I am out of space in the containers. Bagging is ugly as hell, but it has to be done sometimes, in order for them to get through the winter. Once when I was rooting a bunch of cuttings, I put a dry cleaner's bag over ~ 2/3rds of a tray like in the pic above. It helped, I think. > I've had good results keeping mitrata cuttings alive that way. What is it about mitrata? It looks pretty tough and succulent, but often hear how difficult it is to grow. It's on my wish list, ~20% because I like how leaves are shimmery, spotty and curvy, and ~80% because it's challenging to grow, apparently. Call me a glutton for punishment, I guess. > Not to give another IKEA plug, but my favorite rooting storage bins are these because they are 100% clear. Since you have to buy the lid separate, they are more expensive than when Rubbermaid goes on sale at Target. Rubbermaids come in clear. Not that I am a brand fan of Rubbermaid, not at all. My container is actually some no-name brand, whatever was cheap in the store, but I call it rubbermaid as people call a photocopy a "Xerox" or to search "to google". Mine is non-transparent, unfortunately. It was bought for a different reason, but now I am using it because I figure, the light comes from exactly above, so it's ok. I am probably losing some light intensity, but it's reflected light, so I am sure it's not much. But if I was doing it from scratch, the container would be clear. I do not use lids. I cut a dry cleaner's garment bag to rough size to cover the top and keep that film there with clothes pins. It's easy to change the vent size - just peel the film back more or less. No need to shift the lid, which might block some light or otherwise take space, depending on your grow space configuration. I might check out that IKEA bin though, it looks interesting. > I need to buy some identical communal rooting vessels. Something like these? :-) Clockwise from top: (1) hamburger patty container from my supermarket, (2) and (3) are both salad containers from the same supermarket, (4) and (5) are both (I think) cookie containers from... you guessed it! - my local supermarket. Or one of them may be from Trader Joe's, I think. Although because your vessels are in use permanently, you may want something less ghetto-looking. :-/ Are there Marshall's or TJ Maxx stores close to you, GG? They both have nice inexpensive glass bowls often that you might like to replace that broken bowl you lost. They also have a good selection of glass terrarium looking things, by the way, so they are on my mind as well when I decide to go that way for orchids or hoyas. > The real problem for me has just been that none of my other setups have performed as well as the one that cystiantha is in. So, do you think it's cystiantha that's helping? Or is it something else about that setup, you figure? > I think it's just so mature that there is an established microbe ecosystem in there. Oh, this answers it, perhaps. I wonder if adding something like K-L-N or Hormex to that pool of water in communal semi-hydro rooting pots will help create a root-welcoming environment. My K-L-N is in the mail, and I am going to try, I think. > So, I guess what I'm recommending is that you set up a S/H vessel and you keep it constantly active. Hmm, something to think about for sure. > I haven't tried grow stones. It would be interesting to compare the performance between grow stones, small hydroton, and large hydroton. Then I'll definitely be glad to share some of mine in the package I am mailing you next week! They are light - lighter than hydroton, I think. I have had limited but quite remarkable experience with growstones. There are only 4 species I have now (or had ever had) in it. Of those, 3 have bloomed, which makes for for a 75% blooming rate. That rate is ~10% at most for the rest of my plants, in my normal medium, even though the average age of those plants is older than those in growstones. I have no idea why I am not stampeding to repot everything to growstones, frankly, when looking at these numbers. I should at least try growing (not just rooting) a few more cuttings that way - which makes that growstone tray idea from the top of this post sound even more appealing. Ugh, sorry for a huge post. Gotta learn to be brief. Some day, not now. :-)