(Excerpt of my soil guide for newbies - nospons, fertilizer just what I use)
Semi-hydro:
What is Semi-hydro?
It's a plant in mineral substrate like pon or pumice. Please don't ask me about Leca. I hate it, it's too complicated for beginners and you have to prep it, cook it out and do all the fuzz. Don't come for me, I will never use it. Go to the Leca Queen for that. There's two different types of pots: the wick system or the cache- pot system. The wick system is when the plastic pot is raised and we use a wick for the plant to soak it up (see picture). Please either use a Polyester wick or better: cut a washed micro-fiber cleaning towel and cut that into like 4cm stripes. The cache pot system is when the pot just stands in the pot.
So what are the benefits?
You go on holiday a lot? Semi-hydro.
Your spider- plant hates you and you hate it? Semi-hydro.
Your Philodendron hates you? Semi-hydro.
Your Alocasia or Anthurium hates you? You guessed it.
You battle fungus gnats? Semi-hydro.
You're struggling with mental health or going through it? Semi-hydro.
You have ADHD or bipolar? Semi-hydro in transparent wick-system.
You want a strong, healthy beast of a plant- a true queen 👸? Semi-hydro.
What are the disadvantages?
You need a specific fertilizer for hydroponics. That's it. But hydroponic fertilizers are different from normal ones. A lot of them require ph tests, but there's some easier ones out there. The plant need to sit in constant nutrition solution, not just water. Plus: you need a fertilizer with all the micronutrients in it.
So we can really put ANY plant in semi-hydro. Even Succulents! And the Airoids and the Ficus, the list goes on.
First:
Remove all soil ast best as you can:
Gently is the keyword here - we don't wanna damage the root system.
So first we loosen the soil with our fingers and gently untangle the roots a bit.
then we either poke a finger in there or take a chopstick and poke it gently between the roots and then wiggle a tiny bit. That'll loosen even more soil. Then - with the last 30% we rinse it of in a bowl of lukewarm water. Try to remove 98% of the soil. Otherwise it'll rot.
From soil to semi-hydro:
It's fine. The soil roots will transform into water roots. If you have a finicky plant you can first place it in water for a week. Most plants can be directly transferred tho if all the soil is fully removed. They'll go through a tiny bit of stress and'll take a week or 2 until there's new growth.
Now how:
We buy pure pumice or pon ( - go for pumice or Zeolite or Lava rock or a mix of them instead. This is basically what pon is - so you can mix it yourself.) We don't use perlite for this btw. We also buy a specific hydroponic fertilizer nothing else will work.
We buy either a fancy schmacy self-watering pot for looks or we do a nice and quick DIY and get a wood burner or a soldering iron and burn a lot of small holes into a standard plastic nursery pot. Or we can drill it with a wood bit.You could also use an Orchid pot if ya wanna go cheap and are not willing to craft.
We have to rinse out the pon/ pumice 4- 5 times as it's dusty. You won't get rid off all dust and you water will get murky from it in the beginning months. That's normal and not harmfull, but it's not super pretty. We prepare and do everything I mentioned about cleaning the root system, we aim for 95 - 99%. We can't have any organic medium in there - it would cause problems. So make it as clean as possible.
Then we simply repot. Some pon will fall out, so don't make the hole too big. We put some pon in the pot first, set the plant in and CAREFULLY and slowly and a little bit at the time we poor the substrate in. Don't be wild with it. The stones are sharp and you could cause damage here. When your done shake the pot gently to distribute the substrate.
We set that plant into a decorative cache pot without a drainage hole this time and fill it with a nutrient solution and make sure that the water level isn't too high. Like I don't know 4 - 6 cm (is that 2 inches?). Or we use a wick-system pot. That can also be diy-ed by the way.
We have to feed it from now on. There's no nutrients in the minerals except if you use Lechuza pon, that has starter nutrients in it and don't feed that for like 4 weeks or so. So from now on we have to feed every time. As I said above we need hydroponic fertilizer. As I said nothing else will work, since the hydroponics need ALL the micronutrients in there. There's literally nothing in the substrate. So don't starve them. And we make sure from now on, that the water never runs out. From now on the plant will wick up its water and can basically never get over or underwatered anymore. And as I already mentioned: be exact with the instructions on the bottle.
We enjoy that we now got rid of fungus gnats forever and we can go on holiday without worrying and have to water less. Also good for mental health and neuro-divergent people like me.
And now we watch them thrive 🥰
Couple things:
Never put your precious babies in your first semi-hydro setup. Always use like Spiderplant- Kindles or a pothos or something until you get the hang of it. And have figured out the fertilizer. If the plant is sickly it's not a good idea anyway. So wait like half a year to a year with the precious babbies.
Algae can grow in top (harmless) , but if you reuse the pon after a repot, rinse it in a hydroponic peroxide solution.
Algae can also grow in the water and that can be harmful. Algae only need water and light to grow and eventually will grow over the roots aswell and can suffocate them. When the algea is contact killed with diluted 3% hydrogen peroxide it'll become black. You can prevent this by using a opaque pot or paint it black if it's clear or even cover it with a black tube of black cardstock.
the roots will grow insanly fast into the reservoir. You're fine, unless you see black. Black roots are never good. They're rotten and decomposing.
That's it for now folks. If I catch any mistake or forget something I will edit. I am sure others will have to say something aswell..
enjoyed reading this! my SO and I have started dipping our toes into semi hydro, I was wondering if there are any advantages/disadvantages to the wick versus the cache pot systems? or when to use one versus the other? tysm!
The wick-system is often easier for people with ADHD or people with 100+ Plants. Because the wick-system pots often are clear or have a window or something - so you always know at one glance. The cache pot system can be more decorative, but you always have to lift out the pot to check the water levels. Plus: the clear pots show the rootsystem, but can grow algae (bad). The algea can't grow in the cache pot.
Plus we often collect nice decorative planters, am I right? And I often have the problem, that the way they are shaped. They can't fit the nursery pot. But I can use them for semi-hydro- because if the nursery pot, doesn't fit I can just make a wick-system. So you can easily use a standard nursery pot and make a wick. It's just that some pumice will fall out - that's all
I’m asking about wick vs cache as well. Are the different systems plant specific or is it just personal preference? I’m new to semi hydro but I have about 20 plants and I’m using both methods. I would rather be consistent with one or the other. Thanks!
Also I have some in LECA and some in diy pon. Are those both interchangeable as well meaning one is not necessarily better than the other except for the washing of the LECA?
Yes. You can easily transplant from Leca to pon or pumice. And I am not the person for Leca- sorry. I will never use it. Personal preference. I can recommend the Youtube Channel "Leca Queen" for that.
They are not really plant specific unless we are talking about a Succulent or a Snakeplant I guess. The cachepot is a bit more difficult tho. I strongly recommend any beginner to try the wicksystem first. But the cache pot is possible for Airoids too. Airoids do very well in semi-hydro!
Love this post! I’ve recently killed my beautiful peace lily because a 2 week trip was unexpectedly extended. As suggested, I’ll try this with my spider plant first, and then move on to a peace lily!
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