I imported this beauty a few days ago. It’s currently sitting in water and I need substrate recommendations. I know orchid bark mixes are the typical go to but I don’t like them. I tend to overwater and I find the bark really holds water
I have the following substrates but am willing to purchase other items:
Pon
Tree Fern fibre
Coco coir
Gritty soil mix (mostly black lava rock, perlite, bagged potting soil and a bit of LECA)
I had been planning to do Pon but I recently lost a small Lux hybrid that was in Pon. Not sure if they don’t like it or what happened.
by LoiisLame
6 Comments
You could probably make a chunky mix with what you have on hand.. If it were me I’d do a layer of the leca and/or lava rock at the bottom and the mix could be like 50% perlite, 25% coco coir and 25% potting soil
My universal pro tip for a lot of substrate mixes is to make them of equal particle size. I made the mistake of using many different sized soil ingredients, including sand, and that is just suffocating in the long term. The theory is that with equally sized ingredients you avoid creating a perched water table in the pots
I thought I was clever using 10% river silt and 90% perlite for my succulents but most of them in that mix are doing poorly, the soil just doesn’t dry out and gets compact because the perlite floats and the silt is heavy. You want it to be fluffy when wet not like beach sand when wet- that is very suffocating
In your case I would use equal parts tree fern fiber and that gritty mix, but I would take out any extra small pieces
Orchid mix with chunky everything + tree fern fiber is what you’re looking for
My Anthurium/Begonia mix that I’m liking at the moment is 1:1:1 TFF, akadama clay, and vermiculite with a serving of Osmocote
I kinda avoid Pon after using it on alocasia and anthurium since it’s a fucking heavy soil mix that also gets silty at the bottom and more compact over time. Most plants transferred to it developed yellow edges and some never acclimated out of that, meaning new growth developed it as well. Reminded me of the fungal issue I had with my newbie compact moss poles
What I’ve been doing with my newer anthuriums is putting leca at the bottom and then putting tree fern plus perlite on top. For self-watering pots, I just use tree fern and perlite. I’ve had good growth so far.
I think the anthurium subreddit will be able to give you more ideas though.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Anthurium/s/VTNkySsiRN
Tree fern fibre. Perfect PH for anthuriums. I’ve been wanting to use it but I’ve already got so much home made substrate mix made out of Peat moss, chunky bark, perlite, compost, leca and my plants are very happy but if I had to start all over again I would use straight tree fern fibre.
As other people say, tree fern cant be beat. Can be used in a self watering wick system when ammended with pumice, perlite. homeade/offbrand pon, fluval stratum and small size lava rock are all good to amendments aswell but not necessary