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Post by crookedfingers on Jun 22, 2015 7:04:30 GMT
I am having trouble deciding how often to water some of my plants.
They are in a conservatory/porch, where at night it's 18-22°C with around 60% humidity, and during the day it can reach 35°C and 20% humidity. I have a cephalotus and two mexican pings there, and I have been watering (from the saucer, with rain water tested to have a low TDS and pH around 6.5) only when the soil seemed SERIOUSLY dry because I was afraid of root rot, but one of the pings succumbed to mold anyway, and the new pitchers on the cephalotus have gone yellow and then dried up. I'm not sure about the pinguicula (I think it might have been already diseased when I bought it) but I think for the ceph it's definitely a water problem, I'm just not sure if I'm giving too much or too little XD
How often would you water plants kept in the conditions I described above?
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fredg
Full Member
Posts: 367
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Post by fredg on Jun 22, 2015 7:28:43 GMT
I have Cephalotus standing in water spring, summer and autumn (fall). I have kept them wet over a winter too without problem. They have no idea what root rot is.
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Post by killerplants4realz on Jun 22, 2015 15:22:09 GMT
Fredg how much water do you have them standing in? I have never tried this but it makes since because sometimes they do sit in water for a long time in the wild. I have done a experiment by leaving the cephs with no water and over a hundred degrees for almost a month. The effect was all the leaves /traps died leaving the roots looking like twigs. Once I brought the Cephalotus inside and covered them with plastic wrap put them under led lights they grew pitchers and leaves within a month. When bright inside the temp was at 80 degrees Celsius. So they can take all kinds of extreme conditions. So I will put some of my typical cephs in standing water to see. Please let me know how much water they are standing in. Interesting stuff fredg.
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Post by crookedfingers on Jun 23, 2015 6:00:27 GMT
So you say I should give them more? Because when I initially got the plant I read pretty much everywhere that they don't like being too wet.
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fredg
Full Member
Posts: 367
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Post by fredg on Jun 23, 2015 7:13:02 GMT
They stand in 2" (5cm) of water which is regularly topped up. I was told 7 years ago by an "authority" that standing Cephalotus in water is a way to quickly get root rot. It was 25 years then, 32 years now and still no sign of it so it's really not that quick. This shows the "tide mark" on the side of a standard 3" pot containing a rooted leaf cutting. The same pot with the plant shooting below the water level.
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Post by killerplants4realz on Jun 23, 2015 20:45:00 GMT
Thanks for the feed back fredg! They do look very healthy. The spaghnum sure looks like it loves the extra water also. I will try this on my typicals. Thanks again.
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Post by carnigrower on Jun 30, 2015 8:30:01 GMT
Hi, I'm the same as Fred and never had a problem with cephs and root rot and I also keep a high water table for spring, summer and Autumn. Looks like normal moss not sphagnum moss. Mark
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