Dividing helis

[Av8tor1]

Had to make some divisions this weekend, took a few pics

As you can see, the individual clumps are easily seen and divided:

Seperating and cleaning:

soaking in the witch's brew:

as you can see the clumps form themselves, making divisions rather easy... and 've always found the roots to be pretty tough.
You can see how clean i get mine prior to transplanting

and now prepping the new substrate:

equal parts of cypress, APS and LFS

Here are some that were done a couple weeks ago:

errr sorry, they are already promised... i dont do divisions very often, so when i do...


Thanks for looking,
Av

 

[CN]

wow those are very nice

 

[F R e N c H 3 z]

Wow that's a lot of healthy looking Helis! impressive!

 

[theyellowdart]

lol, witch's brew

Very nice.
Thanks for posting this, I was wondering what the basics of this process looked like. I'm considering dividing up my Heli soon.
Any tips? Or is it pretty straightforward?

 

[vraev]

Fantastic tutorial B. Yeah! I have found heli roots to be very tough as well.

 

[Av8tor1]

Thanks everyone,

TYD, here are a couple "tips" but for the most part it's pretty straight forward.

I like to keep the root mass submerged in clean water or at least dunk it often. It cleans, lubricates and seems to prevent most of the root damage that normally would occur. The roots of the divisions will separate much easier if clean.

I will change the water serveral times during the process.

Once separated I like to soak everything in a trich brew, then i use that same brew and let the substrate soak for a bit.

After you have finished, monitor the new divisions for desiccation. Depending on the root mass of the division, the top mass, etc etc, sometimes this can sneak up on ya in a hurry. If you see it happening, bag the plant or put in a high humidity environment until new growth is observed.


HTH's
Av

 

[theyellowdart]

Thank you! That definitely helps.
I don't have any trich yet, but I'll be sure to use the water.

 

[Capensis]

Very nice. Never knew Heli roots looked just like Sarracenia roots. Need to get myself a heli someday...Yours are pretty inspirational.

 

[RL7836]

equal parts of cypress, APS and LFS

Av,
Thanks for sharing your approach. The cypress you mention is cypress mulch (aka: wood fragments) or shredded cypress bark?

 

[petmantis]

What species are those? and very nice too!

 

[Av8tor1]

Ron, I dont know if it really matters... but i prefer the bark, IMHO it should have a higher cypressene content.

The wood has to be mature to have much in it,

Pet, the one being divided is a H. heterodoxa x minor

Av

 

[Jefforever]

Wow, APS, eh? Never thought of using that for helis. Do you see major improvement?

Nice job! You must have excellent temps!

 

[obregon562]

APS?

Stunning, drop dead gorgeous, fantastic, BEAUTIFULY grown plants Av. Very impressive.

Oh, and i know youve answered this 1000 times before (im very sorry for making you answer this again), but what kind of trich do you use?

 

[theyellowdart]

what kind of trich do you use?

I believe he uses AMPAC biotech.

 

[Av8tor1]

Actually, I had the best luck with pure cypress or cypress with just a touch of LFS. But that required watering as often as twice a day. I’m trying to find a happy balance between performance and maintenance levels.

The APS, Cypress and LFS mix is sort of similar to Wistuba's mix in theory and so far it has worked very well. I have gotten good growth and now I can go a couple days and not worry at all about watering. One thing, when i water I drench. IMHO the water flowing out the bottom flushes all the nasties and allows fresh air to enter the root zone.

One thing I have noticed about Helis is that their roots are not very aggressive. I wouldn’t use the cypress mix for a tiny plant. It’s just got too many voids by nature. If you “encase” the roots of heliamaphora that is where they seem to stay. Plant health then slowly deteriorates over a period of time. If everything is right you should see new pitchers popping up further and further away from the original core.

I will start out a tiny division in chopped LFS or chopped live sphag. Then once there is some root mass I transfer to the more open cypress based mixes.

I don’t know how many times in the past I’ve unpotted a heli to find its roots confined to a small ball trapped by the substrate.

HTH's
Av

 

[Av8tor1]

It was one of my heterodoxa x minor's turn this morning, this one needed done a long time ago. The clump was packed so tightly that I had to destroy quite a few pitchers before a division could even be made

Av

 

[Clue]

Wow! That's a nice Heliamphora!

 

[Capensis]

Wow. VERY nice.

 

[Av8tor1]

Thanks for the kind words

 

[alec]

thanks so much for this thread Av, It was really helpful - and inspiring!