How do you world travelers do it??
Making plans to leave for a week and my small collection is of course foremost in my mind!
All my phrags show tons of root growth when I flush them daily or at least every other day, which I am used to doing (I have 4... so it's doable). But they will be fine sitting for a week... I think... Except one. When it gets warm especially it sucks up water like crazy and its wet feet quicklybecome dry feet in a day or two! To avoid it getting too warm I keep a little fan on its growing area during the day, but I have to turn it off overnight or it dries out the top of the pot too much. Should I set it in a bigger water dish, make the fan less direct, and turn my supplemental light off for a week? It will still get some windowsill sun but not a whole lot.
I think I may actually need a couple of timers. I could timer the supplemental light and pull the shades, keeping things cooler, but keep the fan off unless I can make it helpful without blasting the plants with it.
If all else fails I might pay somebody 20 bucks to come water it, my one struggling phrag and my paph fairrieanum. And the delenatii. And all the other slippers. And my dendrobium in its laughably tiny pot. Aw, man! Maybe I should just do that...
I deal with pretty low humidity. Doing very well if it's in the 50s, though my special cooler area that has the fairrieanum and the thirsty phrag stays a bit more humid in 50s-60s thanks to a fancy high sided plant tray.
Thoughts?
Low quality pic of the cooler growing area with the thirsty phrag, dendrobium, and paph fairrieanum (hiding mostly out of frame because the picture is not centered at all). You can see I have the fan much too close, mostly just to push the hot air away that accumulates right by the plants when the sun shines in briefly in the afternoon. The window screen makes it less intense for the leaves, but the heat is not appreciated by the phrag especially. The fan (or keeping the shade down) really helps.
Making plans to leave for a week and my small collection is of course foremost in my mind!
All my phrags show tons of root growth when I flush them daily or at least every other day, which I am used to doing (I have 4... so it's doable). But they will be fine sitting for a week... I think... Except one. When it gets warm especially it sucks up water like crazy and its wet feet quicklybecome dry feet in a day or two! To avoid it getting too warm I keep a little fan on its growing area during the day, but I have to turn it off overnight or it dries out the top of the pot too much. Should I set it in a bigger water dish, make the fan less direct, and turn my supplemental light off for a week? It will still get some windowsill sun but not a whole lot.
I think I may actually need a couple of timers. I could timer the supplemental light and pull the shades, keeping things cooler, but keep the fan off unless I can make it helpful without blasting the plants with it.
If all else fails I might pay somebody 20 bucks to come water it, my one struggling phrag and my paph fairrieanum. And the delenatii. And all the other slippers. And my dendrobium in its laughably tiny pot. Aw, man! Maybe I should just do that...
I deal with pretty low humidity. Doing very well if it's in the 50s, though my special cooler area that has the fairrieanum and the thirsty phrag stays a bit more humid in 50s-60s thanks to a fancy high sided plant tray.
Thoughts?
Low quality pic of the cooler growing area with the thirsty phrag, dendrobium, and paph fairrieanum (hiding mostly out of frame because the picture is not centered at all). You can see I have the fan much too close, mostly just to push the hot air away that accumulates right by the plants when the sun shines in briefly in the afternoon. The window screen makes it less intense for the leaves, but the heat is not appreciated by the phrag especially. The fan (or keeping the shade down) really helps.
