S/H containers

[cedric817]

I have recently started growing in S/H media (Hydroton) and am loving the results so far! Of the other growers on this forum that use S/H, where do you find your containers? Also, what have you found to work for larger, specimen sized plants? I have a CM Fitch 'Izumi' that has ~25 pbulbs and the only container large enought that I could find to put it in is a large terra cotta pot (plugged hole in bottom, drilled holes in sides). Any thoughts?

christopher

[uncasteeb]

The largest s/h pots i use are 10" dia & about 9" high, these are glazed pots with no drain holes.
I just drill 2 holes close together.Pretty easy with a carbide tipped drill.Just put some tape in the place where you want to drill other wise the drill slips around.This type of pot goes upto 14" dia so i,ve got a little growing space.
I have the res height a little lower for these bigger pots(about 3/4" high) because there is still a large amount of water in the res.

[MikeWA]

I have used everything from deli containers (very cheap) to juice containers and plastic buckets at Lowes.

[Ennui]

I try to be inventive, but, practically anything semi-transparent
that I can burn holes in will do for me.
I haven't needed to go as large as you, though.
My favorite creation so far is a 6 x 4"(dia) plastic mug,
with the handle sawed off, and holes 1.5" from the bottom.
It's nice to have other colors besides white/clear.
I'm also considering putting my Ascda.
(which is currently in bloom in a hanging basket),
into s/h, so I'm playing with cutting plastic
and gluing it into a box shape so it will fit in the basket.
I haven't tried any non-transparent containers yet, but I heard an excellent
tip on how to monitor water levels even though you can't see them:
Put a tube in the pot straight down to the bottom before filling with LECA.
Pot plant up.
Put straw into tube.
Put fingertip over end of straw, and lift straw out of tube to see level of water trapped in end of straw.

[cedric817]

thanks for the feedback - i'll continue to keep my eyes open. The plastic containers look great for growing, but their appearance leaves a bit to be desired... I love the straw suggestion for non-transparent pots - i'll have to try that!

christopher

[Gin]

I use the plastic paint buckets that Mike mentioned . A sodering iron works well to put holes in them . Gin

[OrchidTraci]

The society meeting I went to last night was on this topic. The presented was Ray of FirstRay's orchids. It was awesome and I *may* eventually switch over to s/h. He uses deli containers and puts 2 holes on the side about 1 inch from the bottom. He was talking about an oncidium Sharry Baby he put into a 10 inch garbage pail, set up like s/h. The plant origionally started in a 3 1/2" pot. It took 2 years to flower but had a crazy amount of spikes, I think he said 14 spikes when it did flower.