Last time I visited H.P. Norton He said that lime was beneficial, actually essential, to good Phrag growth. Last weekend I was in Lowes and bought a bag and have added a teaspoon to all my Phrags. I will post up to see if there is any improvement.
Experiment
- Thread starter NYEric
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Paphluvr
Well-Known Member
If you had multiples of any of your Phrags it might have been interesting to treat just one of them to see if you detected any major changes between it and the untreated one or ones down the road.
Happypaphy7
Paphlover
If you fertilize them with product that contains calcium and magnesium, there really is no need to use lime stone in the potting mix.
PaphMadMan
phytomanic
For anyone trying this, make sure you have agricultural lime or garden lime (mostly calcium carbonate), not quick lime (mostly calcium oxide) or slaked lime (mostly calcium hydroxide). Quick lime or slaked lime will almost certainly injure your plants. Or you probably have a safe alternative to agricultural lime on hand already - egg shells.
or use dolomite.
...or use K-Lite.
Eric
When the leaves on my kovachii and kovachii hybrids growing in bark turn a little yellow, I add dolomite. The color improves within a week or two. I suspect it has more to do with the pH of the root environment, rather than the availability of calcium ions. Also, the dolomite seems to wash out within a month or so. I have tried adding granular limestone to the bark and it seems to be more physically stable, but not as effective. All of the phrags seem to be growing OK, so I have not invested at lot of time pursuing this issue. Mike
Interesting thread. I was going through some files the other day and found Dr. Clement's old mix formula which shows he used powdered dolomite in his standard Paph/Phrag mix. (See attached). Personally, I think his mix formula is as good as anything out there today - forty years later.
Attachments
I use the AG10 dolomite, but I tend to use it as a top dressing along with some oyster shells. When I put it directly in my mix, too much ended up in the bottom of the 5-gal buckets I use to store my mixes. If Dr. Clement used the powder, it was probably the AG65. Here is a short paper on the topic that I found to be interesting. https://hilo.hawaii.edu/panr/get_attachment.php?file=J_Haw_10_002.pdf (Not sure if I successfully attached the pdf).
Attachment wouldn't open. Maybe one of the mods can help?
Tom
I was able to open it on a laptop with Microsoft Edge in Windows 10. Mike
I was able to open it on a laptop with Microsoft Edge in Windows 10. Mike
Mike - Tried opening it with Microsoft Edge, running Windows10 - no luck. I'll try the original web address.
......and that was successful. Thanks, Mike.
I clicked on the link below the image (on phone) it asked to download, and opened after download
Interesting. I actually think the plants looked better after a few days.
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