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my fellow newbies..

Presto

wicked good plants!
Staff member
Moderator
I have a feeling that this is the first in what will become a series.

peat moss, despite its reputation for holding water quite nicely, is hydrophobic.  in other words, it doesn't readily absorb water.  So, when you're say repotting your vft's after dormancy, make sure you get the peat moss hydrated before you replant the rhizomes.

to do this, fill a bucket with water.  pour the peat moss in.  it will float.  squeeze the peat moss, push it under water, and release it.  you may need to do this a couple times, but it will eventually hydrate.

don't do what I did, which is replant the guys, go to water them, and make a huge mess all over your table when the water is not absorbed into the soil, but instead makes its merry way right down to the drainage holes.  
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Peat moss will hydrate on its own... just not quickly. You can pot the rhizomes, put it in the water tray, and the next day it'll be it's usual soggy self.

And to make the top behave in the meantime, you can spritz with a spray bottle until just the surface layer is soggy
 
Even better... when you fill the pot with water and the peat floats up and away.... all over the table.
 
Presto, thanks for sharing your experience! I have followed the same path, as well as made messes in the kitchen. Plastic buckets work well. With my stream in the back, while living in PA, I used to use a plastic collander and the stream, as if I were panning for gold.
 
If you pour a little water into the dry peat when you are making your media up , then mix it all together with the sand or other ingredients, you will find that it absorbs water with no problems as soon as you put the pot into the tray. You don't need to soak it, just a little, enough to make the mix slightly damp will do. Putting small amounts of peat into buckets of water is a long winded and messy way to do it.
 
yeah I ended up digging out the rhizomes, pouring the soil into a bucket and wetting it,then replanting them.  there was already mud everywhere, what's a little more dirt?
 
Dirt is good. Isn't a learning curve fun?
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When I repot, I usually add my "ingredients" in a bowl, add water and then stir it until everything is wet. That also helps with the compacting issue...if you pot dry and then add water and all of a sudden you find your plants are 2 inches below the rim of the pot where you can hardly see them because the wet soil settled more than you thought.

One thing about mistakes...you rarely rePEAT them. hahaha!
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* sound of tumbleweed blowing past and the faint peel of church bells in the distance *


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  • #10
*someone coughs once and a single but insecure clap is heard*
 
  • #12
lol! Sorry to break the silence, but I've found that warm water seems to make hydrating peat much easier. Furthermore, following periods of rain or otherwise very high humidity seems to pretty much do it for you.

An easy way to do it is to mix your components together then let it weather. The aggitation of a good rain seems to do it quite nicely for me. But it's important to keep in mind what PAK said, mixing in a receptacle other than the container you're going to be using is a GOOD thing. It helps your soil maintain good porosity and helps you make good soil structure which aids in root growth, preventing compaction, and good water retention!

Now, feel free to resume your silence. (It's ok PAK, I thought it was clever.
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  • #13
I do a lot of kneading, as if I were up to my elbows in bread dough.
 
  • #14
Sorry, Jim. I just don't see you as the kneady kind.
 
  • #15
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Bugweed @ Mar. 03 2006,9:12)]Sorry, Jim. I just don't see you as the kneady kind.
Good one!
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  • #16
Some mistakes:

1. Doing a leaf cutting when plants had not even started to acclimate from dingy Walmart conditions to full blazing backyard

2. Naughtily dropping in a roly poly inside a trap too small to handle the insect. Result : dead bug sticking half of its body out the trap while the trap is firmly clamped in an odd gruesome form. Or, trap unable to close all the way and loses its ability to be airtight, leaving too much room for decay.

3. Not titrating water when mixing soil medium with perlite; perlite floats all the way to the top and crowds the surface layer. Even when I do a 70% sphagnum peat: 30% perlite, when water is poured immediately on top of the mixture the perlite bubbles up rapidly and annoying on the surface layer.

Growl, I now need to buy sand from Home Depot.
 
  • #17
Well I find its good to wash/rinse the peat like many folks recommend here. I will mix up a bucket of peat with tap water and let it soak overnight sturing a couple of times and then using only the stuff that floats to pot things in. When you finish potting you will find a thick sludge on the bottom of your bucket. This is the stuff that normaly washes out or unrinsed peat pots. Then if I mix perlite in the peat it will float to the top of the pot, but what I do is after the pots have been beat down with the rain for a few months I top water the pots and let the perlite that is loose float out and over the sides ot the pot. I still find that there is plenty of perlite left in the mix and plants do fine. I mainly bottom water though unless it rains on the pots.
 
  • #18
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Carito @ Mar. 03 2006,10:50)]Growl, I now need to buy sand from Home Depot.
The topic of Home Depot / Lowes sand is as controversial as that of Scott's peat. Some people have done well by it and others are leery of it. Other recommended suppliers would be "sandblasting sand" and what I have been doing - pool filter sand, from a pool supply store. And as always, rinse it first.
 
  • #19
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Est @ Mar. 01 2006,10:19)]lol!  Sorry to break the silence, but I've found that warm water  seems to make hydrating peat much easier.  Furthermore, following periods of rain or otherwise very high humidity seems to  pretty much do it for you.
Agreed, I always use warm water to get it to absorb. Works like a charm.

Tom
 
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