How To Choose The Right Planting Media For Growing Orchids

Illustration (Alief Baldwin/Pexels)

JAKARTA - Choosing a planting medium for orchids is indeed difficult and easy. The reason is, planting media is closely related to survival, as well as the length of flowering time. As is known, orchids are in demand because of their beautiful flowers. Choosing the wrong planting medium for orchids, it turns out that it affects the development of flowers.

Currently there are several orchid growing media on the market. However, if you want to get orchids to thrive and beautiful. You can consider the selection of several growing media for orchids below.

Brick cut

Pieces of brick are able to absorb water. So that the humidity of the orchid plant is maintained if you add pieces of brick to your orchid pot. Choose small pieces of brick so that your pot is not so heavy when hanging.

stone shards

One of the suitable planting media for orchids is broken stone or tile. This planting medium is ideally used as part of the base of the pot (bacis pot).

The advantages of crushed stone and tile are that they can maintain moisture around the roots, and hold water intake longer. In addition, broken stone and tile are not easily weathered, and have a good drainage system. Unfortunately, this planting medium is easily overgrown with moss, so it requires you to check it often.

Coir

You can use coconut husk as an orchid growing medium. The long coconut fiber is able to absorb water well so it is good for keeping your orchids fresh. Keep in mind, you should choose coconut coir from the old type of coconut. Do not forget to soak it first with a fungicide before use. The disadvantage of planting media from coconut husk is that it is easy to rot and rot. So it must be replaced regularly. Otherwise, the orchid roots are at risk of disease.

wood charcoal

The next orchid planting medium is wood charcoal. Charcoal is widely chosen because it is not easily weathered and is not easily overgrown with bacteria. Before being used as a planting medium, wood charcoal should be soaked first with a solution of NPK fertilizer, to add nutrients.

In addition, you can also add a fungicide solution in the NPK water, to prevent mold. Disadvantages of using wood charcoal as a planting medium are that it is relatively more expensive, and has few nutrients.