Using Hygrolon for wick watering - Orchid Board

birdybrain · #1 07-14-2013, 06:13 PM

Here are the other set ups where I used hygrolon as a wick.

I received the three bulbophyllum lasiochilum (dark) just a few days before my trip and wanted to insure they would stay moist while I was gone. They are simply laying on a bed of sphagnum in a tray with a sliver of hygrolon that extends from a separate tray of water & under the sphagnum. The sphagnum was still moist when I returned from my trip even though the water reservoir tray had run dry. Obviously longer trips will require a larger reservoir.

When potting up an Onc Twinkle a couple of the older psuedo bulbs separated from the rest. I wasn't sure if these would produce more bulbs for me, but wanted to try and wanted them to stay well hydrated while I was gone. I used a 16 oz deli container with slits cut in the side for 2 hygrolon wicks. I filled the deli container with hydroton and hygrolon, then covered with hygrolon that comes in contact with the top of the wicks. The roots of the pseudobulbs are inserted through slits in the hygrolon and this deli container is set into a 32 oz deli container that acts as the water reservior. The whole thing can be placed into a tall cover pot if it needs to look nice. It's been a few weeks and so far I have a total of 3 new growths from these 2 tiny, old psuedobulbs.

I read that Den Kingianum likes to stay moist, so I used a similar concept as above. Instead of hydroton I used sphagnum & large bark with a single long hygrolon wick that goes through both sides of the smaller deli container. This has stayed nicely moist without being overly wet and the keikis are continuing to grow nicely. Hopefully this set up will suit the kingianum.

You can also see that after filling the water reservoirs to the bottom of the smaller deli container that the hydroton/hygrolon and sphag/bark used about the same amount of water while I was away for 4-5 days. The water I put in before my trip actually lasted a total of 10 days, so set ups like this could really come in handy for people who aren't able to give frequent attention to moisture loving orchids.

Since I love the look of mounted orchids, but fear I won't be able to give them the frequent watering they need, my next experiment will be a self-watering hygrolon mount.

I'm seriously considering moving more of my orchids to hygrolon wick set ups just to make things easier, since my collection is fast approaching 100! My main concern is about fertilizing in a set up like this. I was thinking of misting the plants with fertilizer after reading that RJSquirrel does that with the orchids in RJars. If anyone has any suggestions or comments on how best to fertilize these guys, I'd love to hear them.

I hope these posts are as helpful to others as they have been fun for me to experiment with!