Thanks. One of the plastic clamp grommets that holds the shade cloth to the steel cable broke and the wind blew the curtain over a bit increasing the light a bit. It colored up nicely with the extra sun.

In_awe, I think you're right about the CHC locking the perlite in better. I use it as the base of my general potting mix and once it settles in the pot, it's locked together pretty well. You still get some floaters in the beginning though. It also seems to last longer. I have some 15g pots with figs and they have hardly lost any volume in 2 years and we have a 12 month growing/decomposing season here.

I have an issue with fleshy roots growing into coconut fibres. It can be irritating when you have to repot. Plus I couldn't get the hang of watering it during winter. Since I keep my haworthias growing throughout the cold season, and dormant in summer, pumice simplified it much faster. In a milder climate it's probably better. And I bet they grow faster on top of the extended growth period.

I add 50% coir to my standard gritty mix if the plant is not plumping up when I water and also for my very young haw seedlings. I've also got some kalanchoe in 100% coir. Probs important to note I use terracotta pots. The only haw I've evvvvver rotted (haw, that is) was in a plastic pot.

This seedling was rootless and dehydrated when it arrived to me. I put it into mostly coir, and it has very strong roots now.

Pagan, Furiosa is in the same universe but different story line. If you're into bad ass female lead action films, highly recommend it.

doc, I much enjoy the well developed clump of cooperi. Character and age are priceless :)

I gave up on on terra cotta pots. Despite growing mainly indoors, the soil was drying out too fast for my once every two to three week watering schedule. Then I started experimenting with gritty mix and my plants really weren't happy.

For plants that deal well with going without water for a while, I now use a modified gritty mix (oil dry (diatomaceous earth), pumice, and chicken grit) in plastic pots, and water by submerging the pots every two to three weeks. My haworthia are doing the best they have so far in that. For plants that don't tolerate well going a couple weeks without being watered, I use a blend of coir, peat moss. and perlite in plastic or glazed ceramic pots. That seems to tide them over for the most part. Plants that can't hand either of those soils eventually die off and don't get replaced. I like to try out new soil components though, so I might give the coco chunks a try if I can find them in smaller sizes.

I read all seven pages of The Haworthian Chronicles. What's the reward? (smiley would go here) I felt like I was binge-reading very interesting material. I learned gobs of great stuff, but still have so much more to learn. Thanks for the great material.

In addition, I read this thread from 2015, where Pagan wrote, "Me and my 17 haworthias are somehow enabling you, Howard"? I don't know if that was literal or facetious, but many of you have come a long way.

All I have to offer at this point is a photo from a few years ago of a very old Haworthia. I'll hold off on some soil questions.

I would avoid the GrowIt brand of CHC. The grading was terrible. There were 1/4" chunks and 4" chunks. It was ridiculous. I thought, "hey the hydro shop is just down the street. Might as well check out the goods. It would be better than driving 30min." Yeah they need to up their stock but MJ growers don't care about particle size because the medium is disposable and it's an annual crop.

I know my H. cooperi var truncata was a glorious clump but I had to break it up. I gave it the cold treatment this winter (10C to 16C) and it took off so dramatically, it was starting to self-destruct. So I unpotted and trimmed the clump down a little. The clump on the lower left side is the parent clump. That rosette on top is the parent plant, now six years old!

Nil, exactly how perfect is your climate? Nothing over 30C and nothing below 10C?

Jeff: Jeez. Bravo! And did you end up with a wish list after reading?

We range between 5C - 45C here. Although we might get the occasional 2C every few years.

Considering what the weather is like back east, I probably shouldn't tell you what the weather has been like the last week.

My wish list grew, but not as much as one might think because I'm very picky, and don't have a ton of room or money, but enough for quite a few of course. Looking at all of yours is the next best thing. One of my faves for some reason is H. cooperi v. dielsiana or H. cooperi v gordoniana. Pagan had my overall favorite photo of one. Did anyone see Renny's gray and orange one on Instagram yesterday? My new unobtainable favorite.

Lol, Instagram. That's cool that you're on Instagram.

Oh and an update on my Haworthia marumiana v batesiana (would "batesiana" be calitized?). (<any English teachers here? Punctuation help, hit me up)

I repotted the clump and some pieces broke apart. I had two pups inside but the rest went out onto my deck. It was time to bring everyone back in from their field trip outside because it was going to get too cold (be low freezing) that night. I cleared the deck off but didn't check for fallen plants (do you ever wonder if dogs are jerks on purpose?) So my large clumps first sustained a 2-3 foot fall, depotting and then at least one night of freezing temperatures. I have them inside bare root at the moment. They've been inside for a day or two (I should really make notes of this stuff, I reckon.) A little on the tender side but the skin still has its integrity and none of the parts appear to have melted (that's what happened to some Aloe vera I had outside last winter) so I'm hopeful that it will recover.

That was also the same pot that had my mystery stowaway plant. Hope it's a hardy one.

batesiana would only be capitalized if it's a common name like Haworthia venosa ssp. tesselata 'Palhinae', which is also in single quotes. Otherwise the species, and cultivar names or subspecies (often or always Latin?) are lower case and in italics, if you want to be very strict.

Edit: As far as I know, it's not possible to italicize text here when using a mobile device.

Well. To be even more strict, the common names such as Doris Day, Morning Glow, Matrix etc are capitalized because they are usually proper nouns. Scientific names are italicized originally for convenience, believe it or not, to make them easier to spot in scientific papers.

Also, yes, a question inside parentheses in a statement requires a question mark even if it is immediately followed by a period outside the close parenthesis.

Jeff, that particular species is hard to find because it does not offset and as I just found out, difficult to cross even with close cooperi cousins. Fortunately, it appears to be long-lived. Mine is going on 7 years old.

I wasn't sure if it needed the period after the parenthesis! Thank you!

I don't believe I can change the format of the text (italics) so I'll just aim for proper capitalization.

Cultivar names are not allowed to be latinized anymore. The latinized cultivar names were all described before 1959.

These H. pygmaea v. asperula are coloring up nicely.

And this H. rodinii looks about ready to pop. I need to put a "do not water" tag on that one. They split so easily.

I like that one, too. Also known as H. turgida ssp suberecta. I don't know which is the accepted name (egads, this myriad of names for the same darn thing). Yours have pointier tips though. And it clumps!

Not old enough to clump:

How old is yours? Mine grow and clump like crazy. Your leaves are a lot wider than mine. Interesting.

I have such a hard time keeping up with names.

Hm. Based only on the size when I first got it, I'd estimate it to have been around 2 years old (if they're fast) when I got it as a rooted offset so it's now about 4 years old.

I got two of the suberectas specifically for experimentation. The first one I posted is under T5HOs and in pumice. This one is under blurples and growing in akadama.

This one below grows much faster and does not turn red even in the sun. The suberecta is much more light-sensitive even to blurples.

H. turgida var pallidifolia

I'm seeing rodinii being listed as just the straight species H. turgida. Mine certainly doesn't develop the color that your suberecta does. I also have a H. turgida from the Huntington that doesn't look like the H. turgida 'Rodinii' that also came from the Huntington. Of course the H. turgida tag does mention it was acquired as H. retusa and that it is a miniature form so who knows. And this is why I keep pics of all the tags.

Although looking at the Schulz book, my rodinii looks just like the H. retusa v. suberecta pic. It also says that Bayer (2008) rolled H. turgida into H. retusa. So I have a feeling my two are H. retusa v. suberecta and H. retusa v. turgida. Goodness I need a scorecard to keep the changes straight.

What do you Haworthians do with out of control crazy long thick roots? The longest root is like a foot long!

I cut/pull them off. (:

I try to leave the big juicy ones alone though.

Update on the lone seedling I transported - it's doing better! It's fatter and greener.

Same here, I cut off the long, skinny ones. I wish I had image editing software I knew how to use so I could show an example.

I got this a couple months ago from Walmart in one of those round glazed tiny pots with sphagnum and no drainage. It wasn't rooted and looked pretty dehydrated. This photo was after I had itfor a few weeks, I guess?

Loving all the turgida and other plumps ones above! Good growing. =)

Laticauda - Looking much better. I always wonder how shriveled a leaf can get before it won't plump up properly again.

Kara - I usually just rip the extra long roots off. Only when the thick fat roots get too big for the pot is it really a dilemma.

Some of my Haworthia that are progressing well:

This week I've also switched over many of my grow lights to LED. Was a bit of a gamble because LEDs are progressing so quickly but I took the plunge. Looking to reduce my monthly electricity bills a bit, along with switching more of the other lights in my home to LED too (as part of government rebates that started today).

Top and bottom shelves are 2xT5HO and the middle is 1xLED. Top one will be swapped out early next week. Needed to shuffle many pots around because the light distribution is different, as well as tweak the light fixture height.

I've also swapped out LEDs over my higher light plants. The T5HOs are still left mounted and I can still switch them on. The measurements look good and I believe it will work out well. So far so good!

Very nice, mayo!

Kevin

If I may ask; did you buy all new fixtures with LED tubes? (you said that you still have T5HO lights there). What are details on LEDs in way of lumens and k? What will you use T5HO for - if anything? You can pm me if you prefer. TIA

Kevin, that is interesting, I’ve been debating doing the same. Are you using the Sunblaster LED inserts?

Rina - I bought all new LED fixtures. The main reason I left some old ones up above my main setup because they reflect a tiny bit of light back down. They are 5150 lumens and 6400k white light. The spectrum looks to be better than T5HO (and it should be for the price).

I will keep using T5HO for some of my shelves where having two fixtures provides better flexibility for plants that need different light. There's nothing wrong with my T5HO and I'm still very happy with them!

Beth - They are Sunblaster LED fixtures but not the inserts. Sunblaster says the T5 LED retrofit inserts will be available this Fall and I didn't want to wait that long. They should be good but few details are available at this time.

You probably saw on Facebook that Brian Choi has been using their full LED fixtures for maybe a year or so now? His biggest struggle is that they are too bright for his Haworthia. I've spent a couple days taking measurements and tweaking my setups. After some pot shuffling and adjustments, now I'm quite sure it'll be just right.

Thanks Kevin. That is interest g, I was talking to a salesperson at a local indoor growing shop and we had a long chat about these, and I was under the impression they had them in stock already....We also looked up their specifications and I was surprised the lumen output was hardly different from that of the T5HOs, and the wattage was less than 10 watts lower. Interesting that Brian finds them too bright for Haws. If they really give out much more light than the LEDs I’ll certainly get the inserts... they were $35 instead of $150 locally...

Prior to this, I had a chat about them with a salesman at another shop and he said they would not be getting the Sunblaster LED fixtures in because the spectral output was not good enough. I came back a week later and they had them in stock They claimed they would not be ordering them again....

I ended up making replacements this winter, too, especially for my other winter growers that were being kept too warm by fluorescent lighting. I have a good number of plants that have to be cold in order to bloom in spring so I decided to just retire the shop lights.

I'm glad I did, too. It's really much cheaper, although uglier. Also, if I ever feel the need to examine individual plants, I have to pluck them out of the blurple horror before I can regain function of my retinas lol

The panels I am using are perfect, though. Just enough power to light up the plants but not so much that I'll need vertical space to add distance and avoid burns.

Beth - $35 sounds like a great price! I checked the hydroponics stores around Toronto but barely any of them had the 4' LED fixtures in stock and none listed the inserts. Perhaps I should call just to see when/if they will get the LED inserts.

Did he say what was wrong with their spectral output? I wonder if it's because the red output isn't that high. Many are still in the mindset that green light does nothing (I am not one of those people).

The datasheet lumens are 5150 vs 4860 (6% higher output). Something is off with those numbers though because I was able to use 1xLED fixture to replace 2xT5HO with around 20% extra light output on top of that. Maybe it's just from how the light is distributed differently from around the T5HO bulb vs direct from LED? I measured this with two light meters, one general use one in FC and the other in PAR DLI. Plant response over the week supported my measurements.

Brian has his LED lights around 12" away plus mesh to bring down the brightness. Mine are currently 7" away for Haworthia and I don't plan to add any mesh. The strip along the center of the LED fixtures is nearly twice as bright as the edges of my grow trays. This is trickier for Haworthia but you also don't have to deal with the fall-off of light at the end of T5HO tubes. I have enough plants and different hybrids to shuffle around to make this work.

The power consumption is not much different, which was my biggest dilemma prior to purchasing them. Real-world measurements was 49.4W vs 60.8W per fixture (19% lower consumption). Calculated payback period is many years, even considering all of the above.

Pagan - Even though my wife says she would let me get blurple horrors I think she'll make me return them the instant they go on!

The temperature in my loft went down 4 degrees by switching mostly to LED. Now I can run one of my 100W air circulation fans much less during peak energy prices during midday. Since I have so many lights, the difference was significant.

Too much light and not enough headroom is one reason I want to still use some T5HO. These two trays of mine are full of plants with limited root systems so I can't blast them with light:

Kevin, thanks for confirming the numbers, and measuring your outputs! If you have really replaced two T5HOs with one LED, that would double my growing space... my SO is not going to thank you, haha! Most of what I grow is not Haworthia, so increased light levels would be great.

I’m going to call that place today to confirm they are actually in stock, though I likely won’t set them up until everything comes back indoors in the fall..

Kevin,

Were your T5HO fixtures about 7 inches above your plants too? Have all of your Haworthias done well with approximately 5000 lumens at that height? What is the light level that you are shooting for at the top of the plants?

I went the cheap route and switched to LED shop lights about 6 months ago. Initially, I used two shop lights per 4' x 18" shelf. The specs say that each fixture puts out 3200 lumens, but I haven't measured to confirm that. That's 6400 lumens per shelf, although I'm sure that varies at different points on the shelf due to the fact that LEDs are very directional. Without measuring, I'd guess that the fixtures are about 12 inches or so above the plants. A while after switching, two of my limifolias developed brown, dried out spots on their leaves, so I'm assuming they were burned by too much light. Other succulents I had on the shelf were fine though. Before the LEDs, the plants were under a shop light with two T8 bulbs, so 5000+ lumens. I wouldn't have expected the addition of a little over 1000 lumens to be too much of an increase at one time, but it apparently was for the limifolias. I dropped back to one LED shop light per shelf on two of my shelves and consolidated all of my haworthias to them. The haworthias have all done well at that level of light and the limifolias are slowly recovering.

This has left me wondering what the ideal light level for haworthias is and how much it differs between the various species. I'd like to grow at least some of them harder to get more interesting colors, but am afraid of ending up with more scarred plants as a result of trying.

Ah you are in luck, in_awe. That is exactly the experiment I carried out this winter. My haworthias have been on the same shelf, with identical lighting and identical on-time, watered at the same time and frequency. With the most controllable variables fixed this way, I'm trying to come as close as I can to isolating their reaction to the amount of light they are getting.

I'll be photographing them individually as they go out this spring and report back. There are obvious differences right now but..well. blurples.

Just to throw a monkey wrench into the discussion, lumens are an irrelevant measure for plants, especially with LEDs. This is because lumens are a measure of how bright the human eye perceives the light. Since humans perceive green spectrum light as brighter than the other spectra, manufacturers boost the green spectrum in order to boost their lumens for marketing. Plant's reflect green light so it isn't plant available. Ideally you should use a PAR meter which will also work with blurples.

I agree, Nil. If PAR meters weren't so expensive, I, being a gadget hoover, would have six of them by now.

Nevertheless, in the absence of such a gadget, a light meter would still be useful for use as a level indicator although lux is the relevant measure, indicating the amount of light per square meter of surface. It doesn't tell you how much a plant would use but it at least ballparks the amount of light hitting the plant depending on distance from the light source.

Lux is the next best, but it really only gives you an accurate idea of how much PAR you have if the light is reasonably full spectrum. One way to determine how close to full spectrum your bulbs are is to look at the Color Rendition Index (CRI). 100 is full spectrum. Or grow outside under the lovely full spectrum sun. Lux is useless for blurples. Although lux can help you with relative differences on light height. Also, those PAR meters are only $130 on Amazon these days so they aren't the $300-800 they were a decade ago.

That's what I was using it for exactly, Nil. It turned out, my level of obsession draws the line on nitpicking the individual bulb-to-leaf distance when positioning my plants indoors in winter. The tolerance range turned out to be quite wide anyway so I just take advantage of it. I do have what I call the sh*tshelf where I put plants that have no other spot anywhere else (mostly plants of different height in pots of different depth). Their distance to the light fixture is adjusted with blocks of wood, depending on how close I know they have to be to the light source.

And, haha. $130 dollars for a PAR meter. When it drops below the price of a Lie Nielsen 1.25" block plane, we'll talk.

Pagan,

I'll look forward to your conclusions.

Nil,

I know lumens isn't a very useful measure when talking about plant lights, but until you get into mid range or higher grow fixtures, very few vendors list PAR, LUX or even spectrum graphs in their specs. So, for a low budget build, you're left hoping that more lumens = more PAR, even knowing that a large portion of the light generated is useless from the plant's perspective.

In_awe - My 2xT5HO were 4" away from my plants. They did very well with 10000 lumens at that height. I do agree that lumens aren't a very good measure, lux/fc are better, and PAR is the best.

One problem I find with a single number for measuring output is that light distribution with T5HO and LED lights is not uniform. Light distribution end to end and from center to sides is quite important to me because I have a limited grow area.

My target light level is 24 PAR DLI for my high light succulents and 10 PAR DLI for my Haworthia. Roughly that's 1200-3000 fc, depending on the plant. Some of my Haworthia only need 250-500 fc.

Required light levels differs significantly. In general, I've found truncata/emelyae/hard-leaved species to be quite resilient and take a lot of light. Obtusa/retusa are middlish. Picta and springbok don't like it too bright and marxii pretty much stay in the shade. I'm curious to hear other's experience with this!

If you're looking to increase your light levels to get more colourful Haworthia, the two easiest ways are decreasing fixture height slightly or increasing the duration the are on.

Pagan - Good luck with your experiment! If you don't already have a fc/lux meter, $10 on ebay is well worth it for purely relative light measurements.

Nil - I already have a PAR meter and two lux meters (one is owned by my work), but for curiosity's sake I've contacted my local Apogee dealer to see how much they are charging for the SQ-520. Hopefully will hear back from them tomorrow.

Think I need to do some more overtime to pay for all these toys!

Kevin - At 10,000 lumens, how long were you running the lights per day? And did you have haworthias under that level of light too, or just other types of plants?

In_awe - I was running them around 10-12 hours per day. Haworthia under 10,000 lumens and high light succulents under 50,000.

Who else here is growing OB1? Mine is starting to look pretty decent!

Some venusta progress:

Thanks Kevin. Based on your experience, I can increase my light levels quite a bit from where I'm currently at. Slowly, of course.

That kintaikyo is very nice. Another to add to my wish list.

Howard

Is something else is growing with that last one?

Good eye, Rina. Yes, my Dorstenia spit seed everywhere so I have volunteers growing all over the place.

Hi Rina! lol Okay, okay, we're moving....[Page 8[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/haworthians-page-8-dsvw-vd~5244595)