I am going to discuss common mistakes that people make when moving a plant from soil to leca. If you
make one of these mistakes, the chances of your plants successfully transitioning from soil to
leca are greatly reduced.The first mistake is not researching your plant. Is this plant suitable to
live in your home? Do you have adequate light? Is it a plant that requires a lot of humidity like
Calatheas? Can you keep this plant as warm as it needs to be? Find a plant that can suit what
you can provide. The size of the plant is very important. is the plant that you're transitioning
from soil to leca a big plant or a small plant it is generally easier to transition a smaller
plant from soil to leca because it's still quite small it's basically not set in its ways it's
easy to manage the conditions as well if you've got a bigger plant you might need to go through
what I like to call the Long Method of soil to leca transition and that is where you put the
plant in a nutrient solution first and allow those water roots to come through before you move it to
leca. A good example of this is my Philodendron Billietaie over here. I got this plant and it was
pretty much this size it's a pretty big plant and I transitioned it from soil to leca using
the Long Method I've actually got a video where I demonstrate how I do that just click on the link
above and you will see. It was best to do it this way because the chances of me failing if I moved
it straight from soil to leca were going to be pretty pretty high the Long Method really helps
for plants that you're a bit nervous about bigger plants and I discussed the Long Method a lot more
in a video that you will find on the link above. Preparing your leca, I cannot stress this enough!
You need to prepare your leca. So obviously when you get your leca you need to wash it and you need
to wash it several times until you can get it running as clear as you possibly can. The next
thing is, you need to have it soaking for not less than 24 hours!! I've had several people
say to me I put my plant in leca and the top part of the leca is dry, the bottom part of the leca
that's in touch with the reservoir is wet but the top leca is dry and I bet you the reason that's
happening is because that leca was not completely soaked through. Leca works by capillary action and
it needs to be completely saturated in order for the water and nutrients to move from one
leca ball to the next leca ball to the next leca ball. Now if your leca is not as saturated as it
can be, this does not work effectively and as a result your leca is going to end up being dry. Now
problem with this as well is, if your leca is dry, leca is made to absorb moisture so it will start
to absorb the moisture from your roots and your plant will crash and that will be deemed a leca
failure but that will be because you did not adequately prepare your leca. I'll give you a
little tip here. You never know when you're going to get a new plant right? You never know when
you're going to want to do a soil to leca transfer so what I do is I have a lovely little bucket
where I keep leca that's been washed and it's soaking in my nutrient solution. So I don't only
soak my leca in water, I soak it in the nutrient solution that I'm going to use to do that soil to
leca transition because then that primes those roots to be going and I'm just giving them that
little extra help that they need to get going. Not adequately preparing your plant is another
reason moves from soil to leca would fail. I have my little Hoya plant here I'm going to
use this to demonstrate how to properly prepare a plant to move from soil to leca. There are two
ways that you can do this, the first way is to completely remove all the soil roots and have
the plant living in leca and have it struggle through develop new roots and start to grow. I
don't use this method typically, it scares me, so I don't use it but I just thought I'd let
you know that that's one way you can do things. The method I like to use is completely remove
all the organic matter off the roots, remove all the dead and dying roots, put the plant in leca
then when I do that, I will keep flushing it and removing the plant and removing dead roots if I
need to and while all this is happening the plant is developing leca roots. I'll bring you down and
show you how I prepare my plant. Grab my plant, gently squeeze that pot, get the plant out this
plant has got organic matter around those roots so I want to remove as much of those as I can,
I just use my hands to gently pry all that organic matter off, that is all the big chunks of soil,
perlite, bark and everything completely off those roots. I will now go and wash this plant off. This
is warm water so gently washing the roots and cleaning the leaves. As I'm doing this and when
I'm placing my plant I put it a bit deeper into the pot it's easier to pull up your plot if you
need to than to squish it down into the leca. I've got my plant there with the roots evenly spread
out and I will start to put leca in that pot. That is my plant in its pot, note that I've got
leca completely surrounding the plant and none of the roots are exposed. What I will now do is put
it in a reservoir and that reservoir will have my nutrient solution. What is really important when
you first move a plant from soil to leca is you treat this plant like you're doing a propagation,
like it's a cutting, you're wanting to give it the best conditions that you possibly can,
keep it warm, humid and lit make sure it's got a lot of light. So I put my plants like this one on
a heat mat so it's getting really nice and warm and toasty, I've got it under my grow lights so
it's getting the most amount of light that it can these are really really important factors
to help your plant aclimate to its new condition. If you're enjoying this video please do not forget
to hit the like button it really really helps my channel. Not changing the the nutrient solution
in your reservoir regularly enough is another reason why soil to leca transfers fail. You need
to change the nutrient solution in your reservoir at least once a week it's very important because
that nutrient depletes as time goes on so there's less and less of the nutrition in that solution
as the plant takes that up but there's also less oxygen and remember this plant is really
making new roots, it's in a high growth phase, it needs as much nutrition, it needs as much oxygen,
so you must change that nutrient solution as many times as you can. Not flushing enough,
adequately is another problem. I'll show you what happens when you don't flush a plant. This here is
my Syngonium Red Spot, beautiful plant living in leca. Look at that white residue, this is called
efflorescence and what this is is mineral deposits on your leca from the nutrients and the water that
aren't absorbed by the plant that's what they are, living on the top of your leca. This is another
plant this is an African Violet that I've got living in leca gorgeous plant, but look at that
efflorescence that is the white residue on your leca when you don't flush it. It's really easy,
all you need to do is put your plant under a tap a running tap and all that will just wash off
and dissolve without water and get off your plant another really important thing that flushing will
do is it will get rid of some of the roots that have sloughed off some of the roots that have died
it'll just wash that out and that means that the environment that your plant is living in is clean
and your plant is less likely to get root rot as well. I've got a video where I demonstrate how how
to flush and I talk a lot about flushing and what flushing is and why you need to do it just click
on the link above and that'll take you to it. Another thing that you really must do when you're
transferring your plant from soil to leca is check on the condition of the roots, that might mean you
actually physically take the plant out of the leca and examine it if you're concerned, I generally
tend not to do this because I don't like to disturb the roots as much I'm really hoping that
as I'm flushing a lot of those dead and sloughing off roots are coming off which they do, but if you
feel that that's not adequate you can very well take the plant out try not to disturb the roots
as much as you can and if you see that there's some roots that are looking not so great you
can clip those off and the plant will hopefully at this stage already have the leca roots and
it should be good to go. Of course another really very important aspect aspect of moving your plant
from soil to leca is nutrient solution. You really need to make sure that you're mixing your nutrient
solution the way that you should depending of course on what nutrients you're using follow
the instructions on the bottle the box whatever follow them to the letter. Check your pH if you
need to and your plants will be happy. I know mixing nutrient solution is something that a lot
of people get put off by when starting their leca journey but it's not something that's difficult
you can mix up your nutrient solution and have a large batch. I've got you know five liter bottles
like this of my various nutrients solution this is the solution that I use when I just first transfer
my plant to leca and when I'm doing propagations so it's there I've got there's that much in there
I've used that much so I'll probably need to make a little bit of more of that and then I've got my
nutrient solution that I use a flowering plants I've got my nutrient solution that I use for my
general plant care as well and I just mixed that up and I'll have that ready to use as often as I
need to.So it doesn't have to be a labor intensive job, but of course going back on this is making
sure that you're changing your nutrient solution regularly this is really really important and
I cannot stress this enough. So that's it if you do these things as I have described them I see no
reason why your soil to leca transitions should not work they should work if you've got more
questions check out the playlist that I've got at the end of this video I've transitioned heaps and
heaps of plants into leca very successfully, there should be something in there for you. If
got any questions as well please let me know in the comments, below I'm really really wanting
to hear from you. Have you had any fails moving your plants from soil to leca, what happened? Let
me know, am I talking rubbish let me know, I'd really really love to hear what you think thank
you for watching don't forget to like share and subscribe and I will see you in my next video bye.