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Revitalize a hanging basket

Hi all,

Got my first nep Jan 2015, and hung it in a tree in south Florida. It was three six inch tall plants, ventrata, and it's now six or ten plants, the leader vining out to about eight feet long. The tree has pitchers hanging all over. I love it.

But it's in one of those tiny hanging baskets... Probably a 4 inch pot, with some sort of peaty mix. The mix has started to collapse lately, and compress. The plants haven't been bothered by that, but it does now seem to dry out much faster, and hold much less water. And that does impact the plant.

Is there a way to revitalize the mix in the basket without doing a repot? That would require me to cut the vines out of the tree, and I'd rather not hack this thing to bits. Any suggestions? I'd thought of filling the top with lfs, or topping it off with a peaty mix.

Surely I'm not the only one whose dealt with this problem?
 
Can the basket be reached by a hose? Perhaps, after making sure the media is thoroughly saturated, you could then use a jet of water to "blast" the old media out of the basket by directing the jet of water up through the holes. Of course the size of the openings in the basket would strongly impact the effectiveness of this strategy. If it worked, you could then refill with a fresh mix.


 
Why don't you just remove the hook from the pot and hold the lower stems of the plants? If the plants are as big as you say, they should mostly support themselves and you can replace the media. It seems easier than some complex way of changing out the media without moving the pot.
 
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Huh. That's brilliant and simple. I couldn't see the forest for the trees. Thank you!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Ah! When you said "basket" I thought you meant a slat or wide mesh basket -- not a hanging pot. Cc's idea should work, though you may want to have an extra set of hands to support the pot/root mass when the hook is removed.

Nice looking plant, btw!
 
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Hey, I have an acronym for my username. Cool.
 
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