Hello plant people it's Nora the Leca Queen here thank you so much
for joining me. Today on my channel today I will be responding to a question that has been asked by
Vishnu and Vishnu asked this question on my weekly question post on my community tab so if you don't
know about this initiative I'll tell you a little bit about it now. I'll be doing a weekly post
where you you can ask me any question that you like, I will then pick at random a question
to address and I will respond to this question in a video because it's really hard sometimes to
respond to some of the questions that you ask in the comments so I thought this would be a good way
of addressing some of the things that you guys are constantly asking me about. So today
Vishnu asked me about the pros and cons of using semi-hydroponics and what's a good plant to use
as a beginner plant when someone is starting with semi-hydroponics. So semi-hydroponics as you might
know, is the use of a growth medium that's not soil and not using any pumps and things to get the
nutrient solution flowing. So generally in my practice I use leca which is clay balls. I'll show
you some of my leca balls so these are some of my leca balls this is what you commonly would know
as leca. So leca is really just clay balls and instead of using soil I plant my plants in this
now what are the advantages one of the things I love the most about using semi hydroponics and
leca is the fact that I don't have any pests anymore you will know um one of the things about
having lots and lots of indoor plants is that you get a lot of fungus gnats a lot of people
have a lot of fungus gnats and I definitely had a lot of fungus gnats and if you do have lots
of plants you will know what this is you know you're just sitting around minding your own
business and it's just gnats everywhere they're just buzzing everywhere they're so annoying
but since I started using semi-hydroponics zero gnats I do not have a gnat problem in my house
I used to have all these you know those yellow tabs that those yellow sticky tabs to get all the
flying creatures I used to have them everywhere all gone all gone all gone because all these
fungus gnats, aphids they all like to you know go and burrow in the soil it's moist there's great
medium for them to lay their eggs and it's just a continuous cycle you get rid of the adults the
babies are hatching is just constant and constant and constant but since I started using leca,
hydroponic semi-hydroponics they've got nowhere to lay their eggs there's no dampness anywhere
and I just don't have that problem. The next thing that I really love about using semi hydroponics is
that your plant has consistent water supply so I've got one of my plants here this is one of
my ZZ plants and it lives in this reservoir see that is my nutrient solution in there that liquid
dropping there is my nutrient solution and of course because it's a solution it's got water in
there as well so it's got the nutrients and it's got water so the roots of this plant are actually
in there and even if the roots would weren't growing in there the leca is in constant contact
with the nutrient solution and that nutrient solution moves up from the bottom to the top
to the roots by capillary action and basically the plant always has water always has water
and in the same vein the plant always has access to nutrients so you know how some people actually
very very very rarely fertilize their plants so they'll fertilize at the beginning of summer
and just not do it again until the next summer so plants in semi-hydroponic setup always have
a nutrient solution and they always have food so they get what they need and they're happy that's
another thing that i really really like one of the other really great things about using leca is that
it's it's renewable it's a renewable resource so this is lekka that i've actually used in a plant
and i've either changed the letter over because maybe there was too much algae or something like
that and um i then just go and sterilize this liquor and it can just be as simple as boiling it
you know on your cooktop for about 10-15 minutes and that sterilizes it just simply boiling it
makes it ready for you to use for your next plant so once you've got yourself a 50 liter bag of red
leca for example you won't need to buy another one unless you've got new plants and you need
more liquor but apart from that you can just keep reusing and reusing the same liquor and that's not
an issue which is which can the same cannot be said for soil because with soil once that soil
has been used by one plant you're not using the same soil for the next plant largely because a um
the nutrients in the soil have been used up by the plant that was in there before but also the plant
that was in there before might have had all sorts of pests in that soil so if you put a new plant in
that soil you're exposing it to that so generally people tend to throw out the soil and then you go
and buy new soil and you're constantly buying new soil another thing about soil actually is
there's different soil preparations for different kinds of plants so you might have an orchid mix
you'll have a succulent mix you'll have another mix for airoid plants
but with lekker it's just leca there's no leca for succulents and leca for air it's just
one simple thing so you've only got one thing that you're using for all your plants that's
another thing that makes it really really useful but one of the things i like about
leca is it really promotes root health and i'll show you what i mean when i say root health
so i've got my up use my ZZ plant it's a really good example of this these are the roots of my ZZ
plants look at that those roots are really really healthy and they are loving life
in semi hydroponics but what's really good as well about leca is that you can actually see the roots
inside the pot so you don't necessarily need to have the roots coming all the way out there
you can see them inside and if there's something happening with your roots you can actually tell
that either there's root rot or there's something going on and it's very easy to actually remedy the
situation the other thing i love about growing in semi hydroponics is that you'll see with
this particular plant my pots have these holes so there's weight aeration between the holes that are
in the pot and the spaces that you find in between the leca there's just a lot of air around those
roots and roots thrive with a lot of aeration so that works out really really well for my plants
um i love the leca plant look it i think it just looks so nice i just love that look the plant
the the balls i just love it i really really like it i think it looks beautiful so it's an aesthetic
thing for me as well i love the way it looks now with anything that's got pros there's cons
obviously there's cons so let's talk about some of the cons the first con for using semi hydroponics
really is the startup cost it does tend to be a bit pricey at the start and it's really at the
start because once you've got your lekka that's reusable so you use it all the time so there's
that cost whereas with soil you'll have to keep purchasing and keep purchasing so you make your
savings in the long run with that the other thing that you need to do when you're using
semi-hydroponics is because semi-hydroponic media actually doesn't have any nutrients in it you do
need to get nutrients so things like this is what i use i use growth technology foliage focus
and i'm really fortunate in the fact that i can actually use a product which is just one product
i know a lot of um places especially in America you guys tend to use like three products to mix
up your nutrient solution i just use the one and i'm really really lucky so other things that you
might find that you might need to buy when you're starting with semi-hydroponic are things like
um things to monitor your ph so this is a ph meter and i hardly ever use this to be honest
because i have checked out the ph of my solutions and it's the right ph so i never have to
constantly check my ph so that works really well um another thing that people talk about a lot with
um semi hydroponic startup is the cost of new pots now this one is a bit of a weird one because
you could go all the way and get all these self-watering type pots which you don't
necessarily need to do or you could just go down the route that i go down i have
my pot this is a normal nursery pot and i make these holes in the pot if you haven't seen my
video where i show you how to make self you know diy basically net ports click on the link above
and that will take you straight to it so all you need is a normal nursery pot make some holes in it
and there you've got a net pot which encourages aeration through to the roots and we've already
talked about that the other thing that you'll need when you're doing semi-hydroponics is a cash pot
depending on what method you're using i like to use the cache pot method so this is my cache pot
so this is my plant and it goes in there the cash pot doesn't have a hole because that's where my
nutrient solution goes so this again that's just really simple that's just a food container empty
yogurt container anything i cover it up with tape so that i don't have algae growing in there and
i've got a video that explains all about algae and how to prevent it in a semi hydroponic setup
if you haven't seen it just click on the link above that'll take you straight to it
and that's all i do i've got this cheap diy cash pot in my dear and my diy net pot and that is my
semi hydroponic setup that's it now you might say to me Nora I really don't like the look of that
it looks a bit ugly you know fair enough fair enough if you want something pretty you can
do that so i've got my Syngonium Wendlandii and eye here and this one is also living in
a pot so as you can see this is a dark pot i just generally don't like to go the dark
port route but i didn't have a pot this size this is all i had so yeah i just made holes in
this one and made it work and this is my cash pot so this is a ceramic pot that does not have
a hole and that's where my nutrient solution goes that looks a lot prettier than the black
one the diy one and that's something you could do so that is my semi-hydroponic setup over there
very very simple so you know we flip it over we flip over the pots are expensive we try and make
our own pots and there and also depending on how many plants you've got you could
you could it is possible to find ceramic pots that don't have holes um the other thing that
might be considered a corn when you're using semi hydroponics and when you're using leca
is that when you buy the leca and it's new and you get it out of the bag there is a lot of dust
leca is very very dirty. I've got a quick demonstration here that shows you
um what liquor looks like when it's clean and when it's dirty and you know run some water through it
and that's how dirty it can be so when you just get your leca you need to go and wash it and it
takes a few washes to actually get it to a place where it's clean ish and usable it will never
really be a hundred percent clean because it is clay and the clay does slough off but you know you
want to get it as clean as you possibly can now this can be a bit of an annoying process if you're
not really you know if you really just want to get home get your plant put it in you know put it up
in the new pot this is just something you have to do so in addition to actually washing your liquor
you do have to soak your liquor as well because when you buy new that leca is dry as a bone so
you want that leca to have absorbed that moisture to have absorbed your nutrient solution your water
because it'll get that liquid to the roots by capillary action and capillary action can only
work if the balls are actually wet so you do have to soak them i personally like to soak my leca for
not less than 24 hours some people have been known to soak their leca for even an hour if they're
really in a bind and just want to get it done but i certainly recommend soaking your leca for
a longer period of time because it does make sure that the letter absorbs all the water that
it needs to i've got my Hoya Lauterbachii here with me and it's going to help me demonstrate
one of the cons of using semi hydroponics and using lecaactually i hope i can actually show
this to you properly so if you take a look at this letter it looks quite you've got this white
residue at the top there so that's the mineral residue so that's minerals from the nutrient
solution from the water that has collected at the top of those clay balls that's what that is
so this needs to be cleaned and that leca needs to be flushed that's what that's what
you that's why you need to flush your leca you probably have heard that term flushing the leca
so all that is is go on to a tap wash that off and that's fine with this one though
that residue has been there for quite some time and i don't think just cleaning off this leca
i don't think washing that leca will actually get i don't think washing that leca will actually get
most of that off what i'll have to do is actually remove that leca and probably put this plant in
some fresh leca and that doesn't happen too often but it looks like i mean look at this plant here
it's got roots everywhere looks like this actually might need a pot upgrade as well so what i'll then
do is i'll just take the plant out of that pot get a bigger pot the next size up get some fresh clean
leca put the plant in that get the old leca clean that off and once you clean that leca
using the method i described above just once you clean that leca just boiling it or however
you clean your leca that's going to be good to go for the next time you need to use it
so yeah that's that's that's pretty much the pros and cons that i really can think of um people
yeah some people think using semi hydroponics is a lot of work because you have to do all these
things um it's i've i actually found that for me it actually helped my plant care because when i
started getting really into indoor plants i accumulated a lot of plants
in a very short period of time and then of course the reality of taking care of the plants hit i had
to water them all the time i had to figure out whether they needed watering or not i had to
try and make sure that i wasn't over watering or underwatering a lot of my hoyas were losing a lot
of leaves because i was under watering and it all just got a bit too overwhelming i did find that
moving into semi hydroponics helps me so much and it's been so easy for me to take care of my plants
um yes so for me personally having a very large collection of plants semi-hydroponics works for me
so there you go vishnu those are my comments about the pros and cons of semi hydroponics what plants
would i recommend a beginner use i would certainly recommend a person use things like you know the
potholes group of plants very very forgiving that's a good plant and that you know easily
accessible not too expensive and you know if things go wrong you can just get another one
but if someone is trying to get into indoor plants for the first time surprisingly I would say that
probably using soil might be the easier way to go um up until you're you're a bit more confident
in what you're doing you're a bit more confident in what plants look like what
a plant that's in need looks like you get into the habit of actually taking care of your plants
and then i think it's better to make the switch to leca once you've got those systems in place um i I
would i mean you could go straight into using semi-hydroponics if you are that way inclined
and i would greatly encourage you to do that but I think for the vast majority of people getting into
the habit of taking care of plants first might be a better way to go otherwise then they might think
semi-hydroponics is too hard but yeah there you go um that is for you vishnu those are the pros
and cons of signing hydroponics and my two cents on what's the best method to use when you're
starting out taking care of plants thank you so very much for watching don't forget to like share
and subscribe and do not forget to go and comment on the weekly post because next week i might be
responding to a question from you so thanks a lot guys I'll see you in my next video bye.
you