What is included in the soil for phalaenopsis orchids and how to make a substrate for growing with your own hands?

Phalaenopsis is a very popular tropical plant. In nature, they grow on the bark of trees. Therefore, for the successful maintenance of these beauties at home, you need to create special conditions.

The most important factor for good growth and long flowering is the soil in which the flower grows. Which one is needed? How to determine which is good and which is not?

You will find answers to these questions in our article. Also watch a useful video on this topic.

Growth conditions in nature

The phalaenopsis we grow at home are specially bred hybrids, and their ancestors grow in the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia. Their genus has about 40 species and hybrids.

In nature, phalaenopsis prefer moist and shaded places. with temperature from 19 to 27^aboutWith no drops. They live on the stems and centuries of trees. They braid the trees with their roots. Moisture is obtained thanks to them from rain, fog and humid air. This flower is not a parasite, a tree for him is just a support.

ATTENTION: For these orchids, soil is not soil in the usual sense of the word. In nature, they are used to getting natural substances from the water that gets to their roots. For indoor cultivation, the soil is needed as a support for growth and retention in a pot plant.

If the soil is heavy for the plant, then enough air and nutrients will not get into the roots. And from this, the plant will simply die. Therefore, choosing the soil for the flower, it is necessary to take into account some requirements of the plant. It should provide:

• breathability;
• moisture permeability;
• hold nutrients and dry in 3-4 days.

Structure

Composition is of utmost importance. Soil for phalaenopsis is called a substrate. It can be purchased ready-made in a special store, or you can do it yourself by choosing the right and high-quality components.

The composition of the best substrates should include:

1. Sheet earth.
2. Pine cones.
3. The rock perlite.
4. Mineral vermiculite.
5. Peat moss sphagnum.
6. Polystyrene.
7. Fern roots
8. High or low peat.
9. Coconut fiber
10. Expanded clay.
11. Charcoal.
12. The bark of a pine or deciduous tree.

If you do not have the opportunity, desire or time to make the soil yourself, then just buy it in a specialized store. There are a lot of store substrates, but as practice has shown, not all of them are of good quality. So, when buying a substrate, you need to pay attention to some features:

• The bark should be of good quality - dense, strong, without damage and not too small. Pieces of bark in the substrate should be whole to 3 cm, in no case crumbled.
• Moss must be sanitized and dried.
• Charcoal - pieces should be 2 cm in size (smaller ones will easily collapse).
• The substrate should not look like a lump of earth, because it will accumulate moisture in itself and pass air poorly.
• The composition should not be land, only pieces of charcoal, bark, fern root, transfused and coconut fiber.

What requirements should meet?

In order for the plant to take root and be comfortable, it is necessary to observe certain principles of choice:

• It should not be too tight and tamped.
• The substrate should dry in 3 days - this is the ideal soil for phalaenopsis.
• The lower the humidity of the room - the more soil is needed. It must have a sufficient amount of moisture-consuming components.

The best substrates

The easiest way to plant your plant in the finished purchase soil. Now there are a large number of foreign and domestic compositions.

TIP: Remember that it should not have land. If you still see its presence in the substrate, then simply sift it. At home, it is not necessary to use all of the listed components. It is enough to take the most basic of them.

The compositions may be as follows:

• 1 part of charcoal and 5 parts of pine bark - has a reduced moisture capacity and excellent air circulation.
• 1 part of charcoal, 2 parts of small moss, 5 parts of pine chips - for orchids planted in a basket, a pot or a block (you can find out what a pot for phalaenopsis should be like here).
• 1 part of pine bark, peat and charcoal, 3 parts of deciduous land - for plants that need top dressing.
• Bark - 5 parts, charcoal - 1 part.
• Bark 5 parts, crushed sphagnum 2 parts, charcoal 1 part.

Experienced flower growers have developed the best compositions for the development of phalaenopsis. Consider them:

1. The following composition is popular:
   • pine bark - 2 parts;
   • gravel or pebbles - 2 parts;
   • expanded clay - 1 part;
   • charcoal - 1 part.
2. You can apply the following composition:
   • pine or oak bark - 3 parts;
   • pieces of pumice - 1 part;
   • charcoal - 1 part;
   • fern roots - 1 part;
   • expanded clay - 1 part.

Do it yourself

The main components:

1. Oak or pine bark. Take from a fallen or felled tree. It should be easily separated from the tree, be dry and not rotten.
2. Charcoal is taken from the burnt trunk of birch, oak, beech. It is advisable to do this yourself, to be sure that it burned without polymers and toxic substances.
3. Fern root - dig in the summer, peel, wash, cut into small pieces and dry.
4. Sphagnum moss and peat can be independently collected in a swamp or bought in a store.
5. Skins of forest, pine or walnuts, husks of sunflower seeds or eggshell - baking powder.
6. Minerals perlite and vermiculite - buy in a store.
7. Expanded clay, polystyrene or polystyrene, pebbles, gravel, pumice - drainage.

Step-by-step manufacturing instructions:

1. The collection of components.
2. Sanitary treatment - most self-assembled components cannot be used without disinfection. They need to be washed, thermally processed, crushed to the desired size, dried. Can be folded into bags for long-term storage.
3. Parts of the substrate can be collected gradually.
4. Using mixing recipes, prepare the soil.

Watch a video about making a substrate for orchids with your own hands:

What's better?

Comparing the store substrate with the cooked one yourself, it is difficult to say which one is better. On the one hand, you can give preference to the storefront - it is already prepared according to all the rules and for all the needs of the plant, it also has natural components in it. But unfortunately it is not always of good quality.

On the other hand, if you give preference to the substrate yourself prepared, you will of course be confident in the quality of the collected components and select them for your conditions of keeping the flower. But you will encounter such a problem - not all components you can find. Therefore, a universal substrate for phalaenopsis will be storefront with the addition of selected components by you.

The consequences of the wrong choice

An improperly selected substrate can be a problem for the root system of the flower. It harms soil that has caked or has compacted. As a result, orchids rot or dry.

IMPORTANT: But a dying plant can be saved. To do this, he urgently needs to be transplanted with a complete replacement of the soil. And of course, revise its components. After all, maybe they became the cause of problems with the plant.

Details on how to perform a transplant of a Phalaenopsis orchid at home, read here.

Conclusion

That your plant was healthy and pleased you with beautiful flowering, you need to be very careful about the choice of substrate for orchids, without it, cultivation is doomed to failure.

And then you can avoid the problems and complications in caring for the flower. Now you know in which substrate it is best to plant phalaenopsis at home. Have a successful floriculture!

Watch the video: ORCHID CARE REPOTTING ORCHIDS REPLANTING ORCHIDS Shirley Bovshow (May 2024).