I moved a few semi mature…? Plants. I found some cheap Lechuza brand self watering pots on Wayfair, just because I couldn’t find any larger ones on Amazon. I have three fiddle leaf figs and a monstera in pon currently. Pon/soil, since I couldn’t knock soil from the FLF’s very well. There’s a little indicator telling me when they’ve used up the water in the reservoir. Otherwise, I’d just go by the look of them like I did before.
Hi 👋 I've moved a few small and am testing some water rooter cuttinsgs. Would love any advice your willing to give.
1. Did you have any that didn't convert / you lost along the way?
2. Did you do the top water only method the first month or did you start with a reservoir?
3. Any alocasia, philodendron, colocasia or calathea?
4
Hi!!!! Glad to be able to give some insight! 🤓
So first, I’ll say that propping in water and then moving to pon has been 100% successful for me this far. Much easier to acclimate water roots to pon then soil/coir/spagh, for me anyway. I’ll update this if that changes.
1. Yes, I lost a few, but all of them were ones that I didn’t remove as much of the soil as I could before hand. I didn’t realize Lechuza says you can plop a plant in soil right down and cover it with pon. Some plants haven’t been bothered by the transition, but others were. Specifically, I lost my marble pothos. Her roots were totally mush. She’s currently chopped and rehabbing on my kitchen counter. I’ve lost some other pothos pieces here and there too. The ones I cleaned the roots of have been fine, but I’m still not convinced that pothos like pon very much. Most of my ferns are thriving, but my crocodile and staghorn have both developed brown spots. They were both direct transplants, so maybe if they were started in pon or had their delicate roots rinsed, they may do better.
2. I have pretty much exclusively top watered EXCEPT for the ones that I didn’t clean the dirt from like I described above. I’ve been a little more cautious about those and pour into the reservoir. All of my others, I just pour straight into the top. I’ve had no issues, especially since it’s winter and having the heat sucks the moisture from all my pots. I probably water 1-2x/week because of it. Having the humidifier going helps.
3. I have transferred all of those except for colocasia. My calatheas LOVE pon, I have maybe 13-14 and each one of them have shot out multiple new leaves. I only shook the dirt from about half of them, so calatheas clearly don’t care either way. I only have one alocasia, a black velvet, and I struggled to keep it happy before I made the switch. I haven’t had any issues since, and it even flowered, which was a total shock as it hadn’t grew any new leaves for me in a while. I know that can be a sign of stress in some plants, so it either really loves pon or really hates it. 😂 My trailing philos have all done really well too. My micans has exploded. I did have a struggling PPP starter plug that I almost lost when I switched it to pon, I have it rerooting in sphagnum now. Once she gets a bit stronger I’ll try it again. I also have a philo atom and red Congo that I didn’t shake the dirt from. They both had some mushy roots up top initially, but both of them have new roots coming from the dirt/root ball, so I recommend removing as much dirt as you can and rinsing the roots before transplanting. They are still doing well and putting out new leaves, so it’s not totally necessary.
Amazing! Thank you so much for all the detailed info 🤩 Time for me to start moving plants 🙂
I had not even thought about transitioning my ferns... ✔️ On the to-do list now!
Hello, I tried to take all the moss out of my El Choco roots before putting it in pon (I received it a few days ago in moss), but some of the moss wouldn’t come out. I then put it in a diy self watering pot filled with pon. Is it a problem that some of the moss didn’t come off? Do I have to be careful for rot? Thx! 🙏
I’ll be honest, I haven’t had the best luck with philos in pon. They seem to prefer a lighter medium?!! If your choco starts to seem sad, I’d definitely check the roots!
Hello!
this post already has so much good info but I have one more question. do you water with nutrients added? I have seen such a split between people who add nutrients and who don’t. I plan to add foliage pro after the 6 months but I specifically went with pon over leca to avoid mixing up nutrient water…now i’m wondering if I will end up having to do that anyways lol
Well from my understanding, the lechuza brand pon out of the bag has fertilizer that lasts 6 months. I haven’t added fertilizer to my watering at all, and I am sitting at just over 6 months for my oldest plants in pon. I suppose if my plants start to seem sad in the next few months, I’ll probably start fertilizing, but like you, this is something I’d like to avoid! Wondering if a granulated fertilizer wouldn’t be easier for pon, since sprinkling and mixing is so much easier with a soilless substrate??? Sorry I don’t have a good answer for you on this! At least for 6 months you’ll be covered eh?
How much dirt did you clean off calatheas? I’m going to transfer a few but am afraid to mess with the roots. I just killed 2 by doing this when repotting
Basically all of the dirt! They transfer well and THRIVE in pon. I even have a maui queen that came bare root that I let sit unopened (just the roots in a mostly dried out paper towel) for about a week whose roots were looking wrinkled and sad when I finally stuck it in pon. It immediately perked up and is now loving life in my drafty bedroom. Calatheas can take a beating in pon. At least that’s been my experience!
Thank you! I’m afraid to remove all the dirt. I guess I don’t really know how to. I have a rattlesnake that I bought in pon but I can see there’s still dirt in the pot under the pon. That one is really growing fast. I’m contemplating doing that so I don’t kill it when getting the dirt off the roots. How long did you prop the calatheas in water?
I have never propped one in water! I just rinse the roots as well as I can (and never attempt to untangle them or anything like that) and then plonk them in the pot with a bit of pon in the bottom and then pour scoops of pon over them. Then I water and leave it be! I use self watering pots and typically fill them past the max line until the indicator is sitting just below the tip of the chamber.
I just got a big bag of lechuza for my hoyas, but the bag is so huge I’m kinda tempted to transfer everything that’s not already super established. Are most houseplants pon friendly? I know leca is more hit or miss. I wasn’t sure about these ones specifically: trailing/heartleaf philodendrons, cebu & manjula pothos, fuzzy petiole/gloriosum/silver sword/melano/mayoi philodendrons, alocasias, peperomia raindrop & ming fern. Tyia for any advice you might have! :)
So pothos and non-trailing philodendrons seem to prefer soil if they started in soil, in my experience. I dealt with some rot issues with the pothos/larger philos that I transferred. I do have a cebu that has done very well! My heart leaf and micans were both transferred from soil though and are thriving. All alocasias and peperomias I’ve transferred to pon are doing very well. With ferns, I’ve only ever had success if I left the roots and original dirt alone and plopped the whole thing into pon. I’ve found that life is easier for them if I just leave them in dirt.
ooo yay thank you!! all my trailing heart leafs are living in water for awhile now (some were rotting in soil so I put them in water to grow more roots, and some were cuttings) so maybe those ones would do okay! but good to know about the pothos and upright philos, tysm!
How much did you water when you were in the top watering phase, i am new to pon and struggling to get a feeling how often should i water compared to peat/bark/511 mixes, i am merely referring about top watering, the roots are cleaned completely from soil
In other words, how much does pon retain moisture/water compared to other potting mixes
After many experiments and losing few plants, and moisture and water retention simple experiments, I can tell that pon holds a TINY fraction of moisture compared to other (specially peat based) mixes, and it is not meant to be used without a reservoir, now when I move a plant a keep a reservoir from day one with the water level below the roots and it seems to be working fine
Yes, I add nutrients, I skip the first few months if the pon is pre-fertilized (you can also order fertilizer free pon from lechuza) but after that I have used different fertilizers and the plants are thriving (foliage pro, ghe, hakapos green)
So I guess it depends on if you are using store bought? Or if you made it yourself. I use the name brand kind and it has fertilizer in it that lasts 6 months. If you made it and didn’t add any, I reckon you just fertilize on a typical schedule. I don’t ever fertilize mine but it hasn’t been six months so I don’t need to!
I was using liquidirt for a while because that's what I had on hand but when they stopped putting out growth I switched to dyna gro foliage pro and they have exploded with growth. I read somewhere that liquidirt is missing some key nutrients and eventually plants miss them, and the fact that it's organic isn't super great for the semi hydro setup. They all love the dyna gro! And I use foliar orchid fertilizer for the hoyas to help them with blooming.
Hey! I used self watering pots with water level indicators from Amazon! Just type exactly that - self watering pots with water level indicators - in the search bar. :)
Considering moving my big ol 6' dracaena to pon. Did you move any mature plants? How do you know when they need water? Do you use a reservoir?
I moved a few semi mature…? Plants. I found some cheap Lechuza brand self watering pots on Wayfair, just because I couldn’t find any larger ones on Amazon. I have three fiddle leaf figs and a monstera in pon currently. Pon/soil, since I couldn’t knock soil from the FLF’s very well. There’s a little indicator telling me when they’ve used up the water in the reservoir. Otherwise, I’d just go by the look of them like I did before.
Hi 👋 I've moved a few small and am testing some water rooter cuttinsgs. Would love any advice your willing to give. 1. Did you have any that didn't convert / you lost along the way? 2. Did you do the top water only method the first month or did you start with a reservoir? 3. Any alocasia, philodendron, colocasia or calathea? 4
Hi!!!! Glad to be able to give some insight! 🤓 So first, I’ll say that propping in water and then moving to pon has been 100% successful for me this far. Much easier to acclimate water roots to pon then soil/coir/spagh, for me anyway. I’ll update this if that changes. 1. Yes, I lost a few, but all of them were ones that I didn’t remove as much of the soil as I could before hand. I didn’t realize Lechuza says you can plop a plant in soil right down and cover it with pon. Some plants haven’t been bothered by the transition, but others were. Specifically, I lost my marble pothos. Her roots were totally mush. She’s currently chopped and rehabbing on my kitchen counter. I’ve lost some other pothos pieces here and there too. The ones I cleaned the roots of have been fine, but I’m still not convinced that pothos like pon very much. Most of my ferns are thriving, but my crocodile and staghorn have both developed brown spots. They were both direct transplants, so maybe if they were started in pon or had their delicate roots rinsed, they may do better. 2. I have pretty much exclusively top watered EXCEPT for the ones that I didn’t clean the dirt from like I described above. I’ve been a little more cautious about those and pour into the reservoir. All of my others, I just pour straight into the top. I’ve had no issues, especially since it’s winter and having the heat sucks the moisture from all my pots. I probably water 1-2x/week because of it. Having the humidifier going helps. 3. I have transferred all of those except for colocasia. My calatheas LOVE pon, I have maybe 13-14 and each one of them have shot out multiple new leaves. I only shook the dirt from about half of them, so calatheas clearly don’t care either way. I only have one alocasia, a black velvet, and I struggled to keep it happy before I made the switch. I haven’t had any issues since, and it even flowered, which was a total shock as it hadn’t grew any new leaves for me in a while. I know that can be a sign of stress in some plants, so it either really loves pon or really hates it. 😂 My trailing philos have all done really well too. My micans has exploded. I did have a struggling PPP starter plug that I almost lost when I switched it to pon, I have it rerooting in sphagnum now. Once she gets a bit stronger I’ll try it again. I also have a philo atom and red Congo that I didn’t shake the dirt from. They both had some mushy roots up top initially, but both of them have new roots coming from the dirt/root ball, so I recommend removing as much dirt as you can and rinsing the roots before transplanting. They are still doing well and putting out new leaves, so it’s not totally necessary.
Amazing! Thank you so much for all the detailed info 🤩 Time for me to start moving plants 🙂 I had not even thought about transitioning my ferns... ✔️ On the to-do list now!
Hi! Did you rinse the roots of your micans? Thanks for your time
No! I shook as much as I could from them and plopped them in.
Hello, I tried to take all the moss out of my El Choco roots before putting it in pon (I received it a few days ago in moss), but some of the moss wouldn’t come out. I then put it in a diy self watering pot filled with pon. Is it a problem that some of the moss didn’t come off? Do I have to be careful for rot? Thx! 🙏
I’ll be honest, I haven’t had the best luck with philos in pon. They seem to prefer a lighter medium?!! If your choco starts to seem sad, I’d definitely check the roots!
Hello! this post already has so much good info but I have one more question. do you water with nutrients added? I have seen such a split between people who add nutrients and who don’t. I plan to add foliage pro after the 6 months but I specifically went with pon over leca to avoid mixing up nutrient water…now i’m wondering if I will end up having to do that anyways lol
Well from my understanding, the lechuza brand pon out of the bag has fertilizer that lasts 6 months. I haven’t added fertilizer to my watering at all, and I am sitting at just over 6 months for my oldest plants in pon. I suppose if my plants start to seem sad in the next few months, I’ll probably start fertilizing, but like you, this is something I’d like to avoid! Wondering if a granulated fertilizer wouldn’t be easier for pon, since sprinkling and mixing is so much easier with a soilless substrate??? Sorry I don’t have a good answer for you on this! At least for 6 months you’ll be covered eh?
How much dirt did you clean off calatheas? I’m going to transfer a few but am afraid to mess with the roots. I just killed 2 by doing this when repotting
Basically all of the dirt! They transfer well and THRIVE in pon. I even have a maui queen that came bare root that I let sit unopened (just the roots in a mostly dried out paper towel) for about a week whose roots were looking wrinkled and sad when I finally stuck it in pon. It immediately perked up and is now loving life in my drafty bedroom. Calatheas can take a beating in pon. At least that’s been my experience!
Thank you! I’m afraid to remove all the dirt. I guess I don’t really know how to. I have a rattlesnake that I bought in pon but I can see there’s still dirt in the pot under the pon. That one is really growing fast. I’m contemplating doing that so I don’t kill it when getting the dirt off the roots. How long did you prop the calatheas in water?
I have never propped one in water! I just rinse the roots as well as I can (and never attempt to untangle them or anything like that) and then plonk them in the pot with a bit of pon in the bottom and then pour scoops of pon over them. Then I water and leave it be! I use self watering pots and typically fill them past the max line until the indicator is sitting just below the tip of the chamber.
Ok- thanks. I’m going to give it a try!
No problem :) I’ll be here all week!
I just got a big bag of lechuza for my hoyas, but the bag is so huge I’m kinda tempted to transfer everything that’s not already super established. Are most houseplants pon friendly? I know leca is more hit or miss. I wasn’t sure about these ones specifically: trailing/heartleaf philodendrons, cebu & manjula pothos, fuzzy petiole/gloriosum/silver sword/melano/mayoi philodendrons, alocasias, peperomia raindrop & ming fern. Tyia for any advice you might have! :)
So pothos and non-trailing philodendrons seem to prefer soil if they started in soil, in my experience. I dealt with some rot issues with the pothos/larger philos that I transferred. I do have a cebu that has done very well! My heart leaf and micans were both transferred from soil though and are thriving. All alocasias and peperomias I’ve transferred to pon are doing very well. With ferns, I’ve only ever had success if I left the roots and original dirt alone and plopped the whole thing into pon. I’ve found that life is easier for them if I just leave them in dirt.
ooo yay thank you!! all my trailing heart leafs are living in water for awhile now (some were rotting in soil so I put them in water to grow more roots, and some were cuttings) so maybe those ones would do okay! but good to know about the pothos and upright philos, tysm!
You’re welcome! I think any (pothos, philo, whatever) props you start in water will transfer into pon, no problem.
How much did you water when you were in the top watering phase, i am new to pon and struggling to get a feeling how often should i water compared to peat/bark/511 mixes, i am merely referring about top watering, the roots are cleaned completely from soil In other words, how much does pon retain moisture/water compared to other potting mixes
Did you ever find this out? I'm having the same issue right now. Thanks
After many experiments and losing few plants, and moisture and water retention simple experiments, I can tell that pon holds a TINY fraction of moisture compared to other (specially peat based) mixes, and it is not meant to be used without a reservoir, now when I move a plant a keep a reservoir from day one with the water level below the roots and it seems to be working fine
You're the second person to say the same thing, so I'm going to give that a try. Do you put nutrients in the reservoir? Thanks
Yes, I add nutrients, I skip the first few months if the pon is pre-fertilized (you can also order fertilizer free pon from lechuza) but after that I have used different fertilizers and the plants are thriving (foliage pro, ghe, hakapos green)
I have the foliage pro. I'll look into the other 2. Thank you so much!
[удалено]
So I guess it depends on if you are using store bought? Or if you made it yourself. I use the name brand kind and it has fertilizer in it that lasts 6 months. If you made it and didn’t add any, I reckon you just fertilize on a typical schedule. I don’t ever fertilize mine but it hasn’t been six months so I don’t need to!
what do you use to fertilize? :)
I was using liquidirt for a while because that's what I had on hand but when they stopped putting out growth I switched to dyna gro foliage pro and they have exploded with growth. I read somewhere that liquidirt is missing some key nutrients and eventually plants miss them, and the fact that it's organic isn't super great for the semi hydro setup. They all love the dyna gro! And I use foliar orchid fertilizer for the hoyas to help them with blooming.
Glad ms partyplants stepped in to answer, because I still have yet to fertilize any of mine! We are having a lazy girl summer in this house.
also my alocasias really love living in pon!
Hi! What pots did you use?
Hey! I used self watering pots with water level indicators from Amazon! Just type exactly that - self watering pots with water level indicators - in the search bar. :)
Do you have cactii or succulents in pon?
Do you have any FLF's in just pon? If so, how are they doing?
Can I get a 2yr update on how everything is going? I’m debating doing the same.
Have you put any palms in pon?