phals and hanging baskets

[gardengirl13]

It's bad calcium, lime and iron. We turned it off for a month just to see if we needed it (we wanted to get off the domestic coil and put in a water heater- the house is SUPER short on space for mechanicals) and our humidifiers gunked up worse then I've ever seen! Everything started acting funny. In just 3-4 weeks. Now our usage is low, so it's only regenerating every 15 days (which is it's maximum) and even on day 15 it's still real soft. So we're using only a small amt of salt, but you can still feel it and taste it. I hate the taste of the water. I like harder water, but it's just too bad here.

I have NO clue why he hooked up the outside!! Drives me nuts! Someone told me maybe he didn't want everything outside to turn red? Who knows?! But I don't want to be using it for my outside plants. But that same person said it's fine to water plants with softened water. But I don't believe him.

[RNCollins]

GardenGirl, our water softener is hooked up to the entire house and outside hose too.

I've only got about a dozen orchids so I've been buying the reverse osmosis (R/O) water in gallons from Rite-aid. I don't know where you live but some supermarkets like PriceChopper, Hannaford's and I think maybe WalMart too have the R/O machines. Ray here on the OB sells R/O systems that can go under your sink or on the counter top.
Systems First Rays

[gardengirl13]

You're right down the road from me! I'll check out hannaford. How much is it at Rite-Aid? Do you do a lot of outside gardening? How do the plants handle it? We have rain barrels that we use a lot, but in dry weather we use the hose. We some plants which may or may not be more sensitive to the salt. Most of the garden web sites say not to use softened water.

[RNCollins]

Originally Posted by gardengirl13

You're right down the road from me! I'll check out hannaford. How much is it at Rite-Aid? Do you do a lot of outside gardening? How do the plants handle it? We have rain barrels that we use a lot, but in dry weather we use the hose. We some plants which may or may not be more sensitive to the salt. Most of the garden web sites say not to use softened water.

Not all Hannaford's have it, so call first. The rainwater would be my first choice. Our outdoor plants don't seem to mind the softened water much, they all appear healthy, but we don't do that much supplemental watering. The Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) right now of our water is 165 ppm. Do some reading at Rays website to learn more about the TDS.
https://www.firstrays.com/free_info.htm

The softened water did not kill my orchids, I even got a phal to bloom, but they didn't really thrive. With my wellness card at RiteAid the bottled R/O water (they call it purified water) costs about $1.03 per gallon. Sometimes it is on sale for 85 cents. It's in gallon containers. You could also use distilled water. If you use pure water you will have to add some calcium and magnesium to the water as a supplement.

If you live in the area you could stop by and check out the Mid-Hudson Orchid Society that meets one Sunday a month in Newburgh. Billc on here is a member too.
http://www.mhos.us.com

[gardengirl13]

Yeah Bill told me about it. I was going to see about going to the sale this past weekend but every time I clicked on the site it came up with a 404 error. So I couldn't find out more info aside from the date. hindsight I should have just pm'd bill.

Problem is it's about an hour drive from me, and I don't do well in long car rides. Then sitting on a folding chair might just kill me! ha ha!! No finding any cool orchids at Adams this morning is upsetting me! I was so looking forward to finding a couple. I'm selling two that just won't flower for me, so I'm replacing them with Adams plants. They sometimes have great ones, only NoIDs today. But they restock often.

Where did you get your TDS tested? There's a place who does water testing in Hyde Park but they charge $25 and their hours for drop off aren't very convenient to get to. I even called around to the pool people and they don't test. I guess I could see about the local water softener people or sears?

[james mickelso]

GG13, why sell the orchids you can't get to flower? Just bring them here and we'll help you flower them. Easy to do.

[RNCollins]

Originally Posted by gardengirl13

Where did you get your TDS tested? There's a place who does water testing in Hyde Park but they charge $25 and their hours for drop off aren't very convenient to get to. I even called around to the pool people and they don't test. I guess I could see about the local water softener people or sears?

I got the TDS meter from Amazon... It's inexpensive and has good ratings... I'm not a scientist so it's good enough for me.

HM Digital TDS-EZ Water Quality TDS Tester, 0-9990 ppm Measurement Range, 1 ppm Resolution, +/- 3% Readout Accuracy - Amazon.com

[gardengirl13]

Originally Posted by james mickelso

GG13, why sell the orchids you can't get to flower? Just bring them here and we'll help you flower them. Easy to do.

Tried. I researched them, did everything they said to do and nothing. For years. I have a buyer already. The one I didn't like, it was fun, but I'm not really a paph kind of girl. I like a few but not many. The other was a broken off bit of a catt, needs much more light then I can give it, so it's sold, and is being replaced with a catt that says can handle window culture. fingers crossed!

We have 5 hannafords within a 20ish mile radius, hopefully one has one. I think I'll only keep a little bit on hand with the rain barrel goes dry.

[Troythediver]

I have the pots packed in moss within the basket. Because the moss keeps it shape, when I water I can just slide the pot right out. This way you can get the effect of multiple orchids in a hanging basket without the roots rotting from being in too large of a basket/pot.