Quote:
Originally Posted by tmoney
of course, again tho, if you live at the equator or in death valley or ou r growing outside in south texas or whatever, you would need to water more. but im just saying that for the typical indoor windowsill grower at mid latitudes, one soaking a week seems plenty
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We're in agreement! I shouldn't even talk about water frequency as it is so dependent on the environment that one can provide to orchids, but I was trying to illustrate that watering frequency can dramatically change and can't be assumed on the medium alone. The examples given come from my personal experience where bark pots can really get bone dry in 72 hours or less. If you live in the desert some people mention watering twice a day... But my mom in Northern Spain might not need to water her orchids for two weeks and she probably can simply run water through the pot without soaking it. Even in bark. If I don't soak it for a good 15-20 minutes, it's dry pot in a day. Sometimes that same night.
As an example, my mom's region has a very steady RH of 80% throughout the year, a chart would look like a flat line. If you live in Berlin you might experience 80% RH between November and February, for it to drop to 60% in Spring and Summer. The opposite happens in Los Angeles with humid Summers where RH fluctuates between 60%-70% and dry Winters between 40%-50%
And this doesn't include the effects of temperature, length of day... So yeah OP needs to adjust watering to their circumstances
I do think that as a general rule of thumb, however, we can accept that mostly Sphagnum media will tend to retain water potentially for longer than mostly bark media. But this even can change since tightly packed Sphagnum can potentially retain less water. I've found S/H to be the only potting strategy to be "overwatering proof."
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