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question regarding ceph.

  • Thread starter bullet08
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how do you tell if ceph needs to be watered? is there any specific sign? i've been looking at the soil on top and bottom. they look very moist. do i wait till the top or bottom looks dry? wait till one of the leaves are drooping? any specific sign to look for? i never grew CP before, so i'm clueless. i'm more used to fig trees and i can tell when they need water by either lifting up the pot, or when the leaves start to droop. but figs are really hard to kill.
 
One way to tell if your ceph is not getting enough water is by the pitchers. The lids droop over the lip of the pitcher, which some people think they do to protect their digestive juices from evaporation. This is usually in extreme cases though, you most likely do not want to use that as an indicator. Most people grow them in trays and let the tray dry out before watering them again because they do not like to be waterlogged all the time. Good luck!
 
I water mine once the top soil slightly dries. Then I water till the water start running out of the bottom of the pot... but mine is a mature plant with thick rots. Once you get the hang of it you can also determine by the weight of the pot. Since its a new plant I would keep it a little more on the moist side between watering and higher humidity until it acclimates to the new conditions then slowly lowering the humidity till its the same as your house. This will ease the transition. I grow mine in an open room in Kansas where humidity gets down in the 20% even lower sometimes and it does great. I saw you wondering about humidity in another post. Good luck I hope it grows well for you.
 
no idea what i'm doing, so changed the set up just a little. put about 1/4" of water in the bottom, then i'll put cup with one hole on top when not airing out. once the water dries up, i'll let it go for about 2 days then add another 1/4".

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... i left it in that water for about 2 hrs and drained it. it seems it took up about half of what was there and stopped. so i figure it's time to remove it. distilled water that is..
 
I have mine on an inverted water retainer, so it doesn't sit in water. It gets top watered every day and has a wick coming out of the bottom, so it can absorb some water when I water the rest of the plants in the terrarium. There's more than one way to do this, as you can see.
 
wick system, self watering system.. thought about it. i'll probably go that route when i up pot in future. i use the wick in my figs for more of draining water than taking up the water.
 
It works in revers fairly well. I still top water though, just incase it fails.
 
did few things this weekend.. wan't much time to work with ceph. my wife and kids decided that they want dogs and adapted two new puppies. lucy and barrett. cute little things. don't bark, and using my hands as their chewing toys.

so far i have been giving water to the ceph every other days, distilled water. they seem to respond well. i let them stand in water for few hours, then remove it and pour just little water on top avoiding the leaves. however, i have noticed that they seems to like humid environment on the top so far. if i leave the top open for any amount of time, or just use the top cup with bottom open around the container like in above picture, the lid will slowly come down. not completely shut, but down enough i can notice. if i use top and bottom cup like clam shell case, the lid will open up wide looking much healthier. i guess they will need more time to get used to low humidity in my study.
 
  • #10
Do not water the growth point, unless you want to rot the plant. You might want to reduce the amount of water in the tray, from what I'm told, and others please correct me if I'm wrong, you don't want the roots in standing water. During the winter months, you might need to cut down on the watering. As others have stated, the lids do close with the lack of humidity. I noticed that mine close only when the humidity is low, even though the soil was moist.

I posted photos of one of my plants growing on my windowsill here: http://www.terraforums.com/forums/showthread.php?133175-Windowsill-Cephalotus

These plants do not like being fussed over. Patience is a virtue with these guys! If you are testing new things, do them in small steps, or you will lose them.
Good Luck with this Ceph!
 
  • #11
been misting often, but found a balance between watering from bottom, and letting the ceph sitting in tray of water without touching the water. humidity from the tray keeps winter leaves and pitcher happy, and watering from bottom keeps crown happy.
 
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