natuural clay as media

[rbjong]

I have used burnt soil successfully the very first time to grow northiana partly it was cheap ( a bag cost only RM2.00 or 0.58USD in today's rate ). Farmers here burn the soil and spread around vegetable as fertilisers. Artificial ferts are costly hence the alternative. Burning probably (?) bumped up the nitrogen and other chemical contents present like nitrates, manganese and iron which gave rise to the reddish appearance,

Natural clay pellets worked wonderful for most neps as it's well drain and retain moisture. It was readily available esp around disturbed hills or where there are minor landslides. weathering breaks them into smaller particles and washed down the hills during heavy rain.

There are various neps growing around this patch of the hill-ampullaria, reinwardtiana, albo,mirabilis, and hybrids -ferrugineomarginata, trichocarpa, neglecta and kuchingensis.

Reddish clay and clump of reinwardtiana ( denoted with red )

closer view

some examples neps grow in open ground

Instaed of using burnt clay, i collect the natural clay pellets, rinse off the fine particles, transfered a northiana and had since growing without negative effects. Most neps can be grown using clay pellets and they show no bad effects.

 

[Indigo]

hmmm this could work. but don;t you perfer LFS more?

 

[DavyJones]

Actually several people have documented that this media works extremely well, especially for species such as Northiana. I would love to try growing Northiana, and would love to get some of this media to grow it in, but it is not available here in the states. From what I have read, it is an excellent choice for some nepenthes.

 

[rbjong]

hmmm this could work. but don;t you perfer LFS more?

For most i use LFS and mix with parts perlite. I have a northiana grown with approx 20% sphagnum, the rest perlite and is doing fine grown in the open with direct sun and rain. Clay was a natural occurence poor in nutrients where nothing grows except for plants associated with neps. This doesn't restrict to lowland but up to intermediate and highland zones. Thus came the idea.

Davy, i believe besides clay other soil components can equally be used as long as they are well drain and have moist retention properties.

 

[rattler]

i use Schultz Aquatic Plant Soil in all nep pots over 4 inches......in pots that large i find the LFS compacts and starts to deteriorate rapidly......i use quite a bit of APS....prolly 2 parts APS, 1 part LFS and 1 part orchid bark.....if the APS had bigger grains i would prolly leave out the orchid bark.....a nice side benefit to the heavier soils like APS is they also act as ballast when a nep gets bigger and starts vining and makes it much less likely to tip over.....

 

[watnazn]

That is a gigantic nepenthes. And clay is a good idea.

 

[rbjong]

i use Schultz Aquatic Plant Soil in all nep pots over 4 inches......in pots that large i find the LFS compacts and starts to deteriorate rapidly......i use quite a bit of APS....prolly 2 parts APS, 1 part LFS and 1 part orchid bark.....if the APS had bigger grains i would prolly leave out the orchid bark.....a nice side benefit to the heavier soils like APS is they also act as ballast when a nep gets bigger and starts vining and makes it much less likely to tip over.....

Not sure how the APS look like. I google it only show the packing. Sounds good by with their description.

 

[rattler]

ill have to get a pic the next time im potting stuff up but its smaller than the average grain size of perlite.....

 

[justjack]

Ooooh, neglecta sounds like a plant for me!