Hello plant people it's nora the Leca Queen. Thank you for joining me today we're going to
be talking about watering in semi hydroponics. Watering when you've got a plant living in
leca. How often do you have to change the nutrient solution? When do you change the nutrient
solution? Do you water from the top, make the leca wet? Do you water from the bottom? What do you do?
Do you take the nutrient solution out and put fresh nutrient solution? All these questions that
you've been asking me, we are going to address in the video today. Let's get started! I've got some
friends here to help me. I've got my little Marble Queen Pothos. Have you ever seen a Marble Queen
that looks this fantastic? I don't know what you call it in other countries,
it might be called something else. In Australia this little thing was sold to me as a Marble Queen
and that is what I am calling it. I also have here with me a Philodendron Rio that is a little Rio
that is living in leca. I'm letting her trail. That is a new leaf there, she's doing
so so well living in leca and last but not least is my gorgeous gorgeous Syngonium Panda.
Look at that variegation, absolutely fabulous. So the first question, how often do you change
the nutrient solution? The correct answer would be you want to be changing the nutrient solution
at least once every fortnight at least once in two weeks. You're going in there
and looking at your reservoir and that is the reservoir there, seeing what's going on in there
and doing something about it. The ideal situation is every two weeks. So that's the ideal answer:
every two weeks is what you want to be doing but let's be real, there's real life this is real life
and we all have other things that we do. It's not just plants that we care for we've got pets,
we've got other humans, we've got jobs so many other things call for our time.
What do I do? My plants are lucky if I'm looking at that reservoir every two weeks, that's just the
honest truth people. I'm not gonna lie to you. I will and as you've seen I have heaps and heaps of
plants, if you haven't seen the video where I show you all my plants click on the link above that'll
take you to it. I've got so many plants. I will at least once every month, definitely most definitely
I will at the very least go pick up the reservoir, go right okay you do have nutrient solution.
Sometimes I will see that a plant is looking a bit dry pick up the reservoir there's nothing
in there and that's like an oops moment. I'm like do better Nora! But that's that's what it
is so if you can do it every fortnight good on you. If you can't, you know don't stress
make it so that it works for you and your plants that is all I can say just make it work for you.
If you're finding value from this video please hit the like button it really helps my channel
thank you. Next question, how do you actually water the plants do you top up the reservoir
or do you chuck out what's in the reservoir and put fresh nutrient solution? The correct
answer here is you get that reservoir, get that nutrient solution throw it out if maybe you've
got other plants living in soil or something or you've got a garden go chuck it in there.
Why? The reason you're doing this is, we'll start from the beginning when you first topped
up this reservoir with fresh nutrient solution so about there, that's where we started right,
we put the plant in, everything's nice and fresh it's had a flush it's had fresh nutrient solution
as time goes by over the course of that two weeks or over the course of that month
that nutrient solution will start to evaporate. It will start to reduce in volume and the plant
is using that as well so it's not going to be as it was. What does this mean for the ph? The ph in
that reservoir is actually changing and if the ph changes what you're going to have is a reduction
in the bioavailability of the nutrients that are in your reservoir to the plant. I've talked a lot
about ph and bioavailability in a video that I've done previously. Click on the link above that'll
take you straight to it. Science is telling us that if you've got your plant that's been living
in this reservoir for a month you haven't changed your nutrient solution in a month the amount of
food that that plant is able to access from your nutrient solution is greatly compromised
because the ph in that reservoir is now not optimal for the plant to absorb. So your plant
is not going to grow as well as it should. So it truly is in your plant's best interest for you to
take that solution out and put in fresh nutrient solution. So you say to me Nora why can't I just
top it up? This is nutrient solution that's fresh, I just made that up. Why can't I just top that up?
You can. Is it the best thing for you to be doing? Not really! Why? Again the ph in this solution is
probably higher, lower whatever things have happened it's not optimal. The ph in your fresh
nutrient solution is just right okay. So when you mix this fresh one in with the old one
the ph is not going to be just right as it was. In this it's going to be different it's not going
to be optimal so your plant is not going to be optimally receiving nutrition from the nutrient
solution that you've provided. So the best best practice is for you to throw that out, wash
your reservoir because you've still got traces of that nutrient solution in there. You just want to
wash it out and get that absolutely clean and put fresh nutrient solution in there. Ideally
while you're doing that you've flushed your plant. Rinse that over with some nice water and
if you don't know what I mean when I talk about flushing click on the link above and that'll take
you straight to a video where I demonstrate what flushing is and I explain why you need to flush,
and let your plant sit for a few minutes so all that water that you use to flush it out
drains away and when that's nice and not dripping plonk it in your fresh nutrient solution and your
plant is ready to do some fabulous absorbing and it will grow away! I want to show you what the ph
in your reservoir starts to do when it has been living there for a while. So I've got my little
ph tester here we're going to do a little bit of chemistry today and I've got my indicator we're
going to do that and I want you to see what the ph in that reservoir actually looks like. So this is
the reservoir that my Philodendron Rio was living in and I'm just going to get a sample of that and
put it in my little test tube over there. So I've got that there and I've got my ph testing solution
just get about a drop or two in there
close that off
and that is what I've got there. That is what that looks like so that is looking light
green that is making me slightly unhappy because
I put that there this looks like to me it's a ph of about 6.5 which is still okay because
you do want to maintain a ph of between 6 and 6.5 so that is still relatively okay. What I will do
is test the ph of my fresh nutrient solution so this is now the ph of my fresh nutrient solution.
So as you can see the ph of my fresh nutrient solution lies between about 5.5 to 6 and the other
solution from the reservoir was at 7. So the ph does change. So what you want to do really is get
yourself some fresh nutrient solution. I'll test the ph of the reservoir in my Marble Queen. You
can see that that is starting to go towards the green end. What I've been able to demonstrate to
you is you do get a ph change from when you first make up your nutrient solution to when it has been
sat in the reservoir for two weeks to a month it changes, so you really do need to just
throw that out and put some fresh nutrient solution in for your plant. The next question is,
do I let the reservoirs completely dry up or do I continuously top up? Ideally no. You're not
letting that reservoir completely dry up because the whole point of using semi hydroponics is that
your plant has got continuous access to nutrition and to water so if you let it dry up it's not
going to be continuous. So you want to have that nutrient solution in there at all times.But
life happens you know, it's a bit difficult to consistently be putting fresh nutrient solution
so if you find you're running out the door you pick up your reservoir and it's completely dry
fill it up or if you find that it's almost you know there's only so little left and you don't
have time to dump that out you just want to top it up by all means top it up because that's what you
need to do. Something is better than nothing, but ideally you do want to make sure that reservoir is
always full. But you also want to make sure that you're completely rinsing out that reservoir and
putting some fresh nutrient solution. So that's my plants that is what I do with my plants in
semi-hydro it's not a complex thing it's just something you have to keep on top of like all the
things that you love in your life it does take a little bit of work. Thank you so much for watching
and don't forget to like share and subscribe and I will see you in my next video thank you goodbye.