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New H.minor!

thez_yo

instigator
I'm excited and I'm hoping I'm doing it right...I potted this guy up in about 2/3 lfs, 1/3 coarse orchid bark with a couple strands lfs running the length of the tap root (just straight down without any side roots..dunno if that's how they grow or if they got broken off during shipping). He's in a 3" pot, lfs --> live sphagnum (was green in the not-too-distant-past) top dressing.

clicky picture -->


I plan on watering every day. If this sounds wrong, please tell me ASAP before I kill the poor thing!
 
You will want to give it lots of TLC in the next month or two (very high humidity, bright light, cool conditions, etc). From what I've read, Heliamphora hates being repotted.
 
Don't water it every day... keep it in very high humidity for now, with lotsa lotsa light :)

I don't think I've watered mine for months. The humidity keeps the sphagnum just damp, so no root rot occurs from overwatering. However, if you want to flush the pot with water every day to keep the roots cool, make sure you have a fast draining mix :)

Good luck!
 
Don't water it every day... keep it in very high humidity for now, with lotsa lotsa light :)

I don't think I've watered mine for months. The humidity keeps the sphagnum just damp, so no root rot occurs from overwatering. However, if you want to flush the pot with water every day to keep the roots cool, make sure you have a fast draining mix :)

Good luck!

Pet: I take it you're growing your Heli in a sealed/semi-sealed terrarium then?




That's a cute Heli, Thez_yo! Good luck with it!
 
Pet: I take it you're growing your Heli in a sealed/semi-sealed terrarium then?

Clue: Your assumption is correct :)

I have always thought about moving it out of there to grow it in lower humidity (perhaps on a windowsill with supplemental lighting) but never actually tried acclimating it to room humidity.

After my new ones are established and start growing again, perhaps I'll give it a shot ;)
 
after seeing a friend try to acclimate them to room RH, do so over a long period of time, bagged, poking holes every so often... they seem to wither and dry when taken out of high RH...

trust me, i know, when i repotted a division, 3/5 died. I think it probably had to do with the fact they were uprooted and i didn't soak in water between steps... just thought i'd throw that in there..

I'll be trying to grow one this summer as a windowsill plant, i'll keep you guys updated if(when ;) ) it works..
 
I prefer to not use bark in Heliamphora mix, as I find it rots. Orchids are kept reasonably dry so the bark breaks down slowly but Heliamphora are kept wet and the bark decay process is much faster. My preferred mix is 45% live Sphagnum moss, 45% perlite, 10% sphagnum moss peat. Here's the results:

SS851016.resized.JPG


This one was potted into an orchid pot which sits in a large tall vase, thus keeping the local humidity raised.
 
Congrats Zu

I'll chime in and confuse you even more...

I personally have had the best luck with cypress bark based mixes... my best growth rates have been with almost pure cypress and daily watering....
But that was too attention intensive, so I usually mix cypress bark, LFS, and APS for mature plants and water every couple days.
For young plants I like live sphag and perlite 1:1... their young root system find the voids in bark based mixes difficult to navigate
They are hungry buggers and love to be fed

Most of your replies are by experienced heli growers
FWIW while not required, I know at least a couple (including myself) are also Trichoderma users

Enjoy the heli, they are a lovely plant
Av
 
Thanks everyone...looks like I'm going to disturb their roots again today (the poor things) and just go with perlite:lfs and leave them to it. I hope they don't hate me too much for it.
 
  • #10
I'm excited and I'm hoping I'm doing it right...I potted this guy up in about 2/3 lfs, 1/3 coarse orchid bark with a couple strands lfs running the length of the tap root (just straight down without any side roots..dunno if that's how they grow or if they got broken off during shipping). He's in a 3" pot, lfs --> live sphagnum (was green in the not-too-distant-past) top dressing.

I plan on watering every day. If this sounds wrong, please tell me ASAP before I kill the poor thing!


If the mix is well-drained, I would water it daily -- and provide the high humidity and bright light that some others have mentioned; that said, the difficulty in re-potting Heliamphora is largely a myth (as some on this forum have already discussed -- Av8tor1 in particular) . . .
 
  • #11
I personally have had the best luck with cypress bark based mixes... my best growth rates have been with almost pure cypress and daily watering....
I'm not sure what my orchid bark was, it may not have been cypress. All I know is that it started to take on a fungal smell and went soft. Of course, not all fungus is detrimental and some are actually beneficial - such as Trichoderma :)
 
  • #12
If the mix is well-drained, I would water it daily -- and provide the high humidity and bright light that some others have mentioned; that said, the difficulty in re-potting Heliamphora is largely a myth (as some on this forum have already discussed -- Av8tor1 in particular) . . .

Yup yup. I treat all my plants pretty rough (oops) but the reason I didn't want to repot so soon is because the H.minor just spent a few days in the mail...but I think it still looks great so here's the results of the repot. I think uprooting so soon is actually better than waiting a month because the roots haven't affixed themselves to the potting medium yet. I think I keep everything alive with sheer willpower. Their roots actually look (and feel) like a white version of ceph roots.

Anyways, notice there's 3 now! The H.nutans was actually 2 small plants that decided they wanted to get split up today ???

P4170013.jpg


P4170014.jpg


I have them in deepish fresh fruit containers (in 3" pots still) from the grocery store as "mini terrariums" that I'll put a strip of saran-wrap over, to hold the pots in place by their name tags (they're a little higher than the plastic fruit containers) and help hold in the humidity. Hopefully in time the sphagnum moss grows and fills in the gap between the pots and the fruit containers. Maybe then when they grow up I can poke holes in the fruit containers, slip off the white pots, and I'll have the perfect sized live medium and bigger pot!
 
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