Thanks for posting the pictures. I love experiments like this. I must say, yours look better than a lot I've seen grown in more convention ways!

Thanks Rhizo.

These started out in 4" pots and were generously given room to grow. Now I have to clean the rest of the soil off and reset up in passive-hydro.

That is interesting. I do not do a well drained soil as a rule because I was not available to water often and when I would re-pot that is the kind of root system I would see. It seems there are some plants that love to be water logged.

How did the leaves get "toasted"?

Josh

Hi Danny...
What a great experiment! How did you come up with the idea?

I don't understand the reason you cut the liter box in half, then soldered back together? lol

What's Hydroton?

Your Spath looks fine, misus a few brown leaves. Do you know what caused browning.

I enjoy experimenting. I have a some-what older Spath that gets very little attention.

How would I go about your experiment?

Funny. Yesterday I went to PetsMart. While checking plants that are placed in aquariums, I spotted a Spath and Dracana amongst other plants I'm unfamiliar with.
Their Spaths and Dracaenas were doing fantastic submerged under water. Toni

IMO, it's easy for anyone wishing to believe that plants do well in waterlogged soils to assume that because the container these plants were in didn't have a drain hole, they were necessarily continually saturated, and still able to resist root rot; and that they appreciated being waterlogged ...... if indeed they were waterlogged. More likely though, they were watered on an as needed basis, which presents no particular problem other than the inevitability of an accumulation of salts in the soil from fertilizers and tap water.

These two plantings were both more than 5 years in the same container without drain holes when I split the plants because they were getting too large to be attractive. The only thing I did to ensure their good health was to water with some form of deionized water (distilled, from dehumidifier, rain, snow melt).

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Al

Marquest; I would say that this likely worked because the container was shallow, in a deeper pot I believe things might have just fermented down below.

Josh; it got toasted when the building managers turned the heat up, making it stay on for a longer period of time. As mentioned before my plants sit on top of a heating manifold made of 8 lengths of 1-1/2" pipe( a radiator, a big one) and it wasn't insulated enough from the heat. I have photos of it, I'm not home now but I'll post those pix later.

Toni; the tub is a bucket cut half from the top down, not a litter box for the cats to poop in. I needed a container that was wide, long and flat and a bucket was what I had. I cut the top section with the lip for the lid off, sawed it down and melted it back together. The brown leafs are from the heat kicking on, it didn't have any during last summer with no heat but the was some browning of leaves during the heating season last winter.

Hydroton is lightweight expanded clay made it little sphere-ish shapes. It's mainly use in hydroponics, I got the idea from seeing steve's (exotic rainforest) spathes growing out of his fishtank and learning that they were bog plants.

Al; I would say that this container was normally kept waterlogged. I kept it with water sitting above the soil line but I would be lying if this was 100% of the time. There a couple of time when I wasn't around for a few days to weeks when it dried up more but the usually situation was fully flooded. But that is often the case in natural bogs that they'll dry out now and then.

I have also grown horsetail and cypress in smaller glass containers fully emersed in water but they weren't in as large of planting.

Danny, I once bought a succulent, 'locally' that was potted in round, brownish balls. Wonder if that was Hydroton??

What are your future plans for the Spath? I'm still unclear what you did, lol, (got a major headache today plus fever,' but your Spaths look great.

Hi Toni

I'm planning on replanting them using only the hydroton. If the little brownish clay balls were 1/4 to 1/2 in diameter it possibly was hydroton or some equivalent that is sold for hydro. It is generically called LECA. If you want to brave the city and come down to my studio I'll give you a handful of them but it'll have to be in the next few days, Not Monday, I have something I have to do. My studio is just a couple of blocks away from the United Center.

Here is a picture showing how much I had to cut off after the radiator incident. I thought I had one from before I trimmed it but I don't.

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At first I only watered it with RO or Distilled at some point I started using tap water. Once every few months I would tip it up and drain it than refill it.

I do need to point out that Spathes are bog plants and the anatomy of bog plants has evolved to adapt to this type of situation. If I had tried this with a Dracaenia or Begonia it probably would have failed long ago.

dellis326, I was not judging how you were growing your bog plant. That is not my way. I do not try to tell anyone that they are wrong about how they grow their plants or whatever experiment someone tries or chooses to grow their plant. It is a good thing, that is how we learn.

American would never have been discovered if some had continued to believe the world was flat. LOL

I purchased a Dracaena marginata 'Tricolor', from a online pond water garden vendor. In the summer I grew it in the pond and in the winter it was in a pot with no drainage. It grew from a little 3" pot to 5' before I had to start over with a cutting. If you find one you might want to try. It worked good as a bog.

Marquest; I wasn't criticizing you either. I have several Dracaena marginata, It has been my experience that they grow better when not kept this wet when grown in soil however they will grow pretty well in passive-hydro.

I would guess that if you need to use a heavier soil so they stay damp longer that you use either a shallower pot or in a deep pot you screen off the bottom third to half using a plastic window screen supported from below, with the grow mix on top of that. I have another group of spathes that are grown in a 14" pot that is 10" deep but the bottom half of the pot is filled with rolls of plastic chicken fence so there is only about 5" of soil in there with air under the soil.

OK dellis, I thought you were saying I thought what you were doing was a bad thing. LOL

Danny, didn't see your thread until today, Monday 23rd.

The brown/tan balls are closer to an inch. If you use/seen Potpourii, they look exactly like those in potpourii, different texture.

What I don't understand is, if these balls are used for hydroponics,' why pot succulents in this stuff??

A second succulent is potted in smaller mix, 'not exactly round, unlike the balls in succulent 1. They're approximately 1/4". Never saw either mediums.

Danny, thanks but you don't have to give me Hydros/LECAS, but I appreciate the offer.
However, I'd love to see your studio some time. A nice, 'warm' sunny, dry day, lol, spring or summer.
Are your plants kept in the studio? I'd love seeing your greens, too.

Toni, LECA comes in a variety of sizes ;-)

Toni, growing plants in containers is much closer to hydroponic than in-ground growing.
LECA provides structure, durability, aeration, and moisture retention. In other words,
exactly what a plant needs in a substrate (growing medium).

Josh

Yeah, what Josh said...

Actually Toni I was offering you a handful of the spathes. I don't feel like replanting so many of them.

Josh, I see.

LECA's might be sold at a green house/nursery. Stores such as HD, grocery, never stock anything other than standard soils and bark.
HD doesn't even have MG/Cactus/Succulent/Palm. I asked the manager, he said, we don't sell during winter. I'm thinking, WHAT? The truth is he's in charge of ordering and forgot to order..the only mediums they've had the last 4 months is AV soil and Orchid bark. Liar, liar!

Do you mean if it's mixed with other mediums or alone?

Danny, 'Yeah, what Josh said...' lol

Oh lol, sorry..when you said, handful....oh well.

Thanks but I have 3 Spaths, two variegated. Variegatas are mainly what I look for these days. But, thanks anyway, T

Well if anyone else here in the Chicago area wants to come pick up some free spathes just send me an email. I don't want to mail them to anyone during the cold weather otherwise I would be willing. Please contact me by the end of the week (Jan 27) if you want some.

LECA can be mixed with something else but there isn't much benefit to doing so. You can put some long fiber sphagnum with it in increase wicking but you can use short lengths acrylic string or yarn instead and for most plants in doesn't make that much of a difference

Danny, what you mean by wicking??

The only wicking technique I know of is to keep soil moist, (by placing string inside drainage hole into saucer)so I don't wick.
Wicking is done with African Violets, or used to be. Is tht what you mean? Toni

Yeah, same thing more or less. Water wicks through the LECA but it can be increased by adding long fibrous stuff to it.