How I converted my houseplant to semi-hydroponic
Are you tired of underwatering or overwatering? I know I am. Sometimes even the easiest houseplant like Pothos would rot if you overwater them. Bugs I have seen in the soil could give me nightmares, so it makes sense for me to start converting my plants to semi-hydroponic. Before I go into sharing my experience, I like to put it upfront. The experienced people in semi-hydro have told me, no soil doesn't mean no pests!
First, I started by picking plants that usually like water and moisture. Second, whatever I had from my propagation station, I transferred them to semi-hydro once they grew roots. So far, I have converted Prayer plant, Maranta, Monstera Adansonii, Cebu Blue, Dracaena, and Pothos.
I have seen videos that people talked about how you can use any pots to do semi-hydro. You just need to have an inner pot with holes and a cachepot that holds water. It wasn't easy for me to find two planters that matched up in size, so I started with the self-watering pots I got previously. The ones I used were Vencer Self Watering Planter. I like the minimal look of it, and you can find it on Amazon. Everyone has their preference, so I am sure you can use any self-watering pots as long as they are big enough to hold your plants in place. I have containers that I got from Ikea, and recently I found these 4-inch mesh pots that would fit in perfectly as inner pots.
After deciding on the pots I wanted to use, I washed away all the soil on the plant as best as I could. Then put the plant in the planter, and start adding clay pebbles (Leca) to the inner pots. I got my Leca from Ikea, and I think it was $6 a bag. I haven't seen it at the nurseries, but you can find it on Amazon if you don't have an Ikea nearby. If a plant was in the soil before, I would have the water level up to cover the clay pebbles slightly, so make sure the roots get some water but not drowning in water. If I converted a plant from propagation, I would have water fill up to 80% of the pot, and then slowly reducing the water level once the plant adapted.
So far, all of them are doing well! I haven't noticed any casualty yet. If I learned anything new, I would continue to document and share it here!
