- Fri Sep 16, 2016 5:00 am
#274164
I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with self watering planters? I did a search and most self watering planters I see that were talked about for VFTs are the ones from Walmart that has a small lip at the bottom to put water in. I'm not terribly crazy on the looks of those. I'm specifically looking at one of these:
https://www.amazon.com/Lechuza-Balconer ... ds=lechuza
My VFTs are still very small but when I started buying them, my ultimate goal is to get 2 or 3 different cultivars (I have 3 right now) and let them grow out to fill a big pot each. I really like how Matt has his mother plants setups with one cultivar per pot. The problem with that is, we live in an apartment and I have to supplement lighting with T5HOs since our balcony only gets about 3 to 4 hours of direct sunlight. The other problem is the sheer size of each pot. We don't have room for 3 big pots like those that Matt have. Also, the cost of long fiber sphagnum moss to fill each one of those will add up and make re-pottings costly. Especially right now that my plants are still small.
I don't want to mix the 3 cultivars in one big pot but it seems like a trough style planter is more space and cost efficient compared to having 3 separate pots. That particular one that I linked above will also fit perfectly under my T5HO light fixture. It's not as deep as I want it to be but I think it should be deep enough. The total height dimension is 7" which would give me about 5" to 5.5" inside depth after taking into account the water reservoir underneath. It seems like all the deep self watering pot only comes in big sizes. My question is, how do pots such as this perform in keeping the soil moist? This particular brand includes porous substrate to regulate the water transfer between the reservoir and the potting mix. I'm thinking of not using this included substrate and instead filling the bottom part (where it touches the water) with LFSM, followed by a few inches of peat/perlite mix (to save some space on LFSM cost) and filling the rest of the way with LFSM.
I might still get the really big pots later on once we get a house and have more space, but for now, I really like how this self watering planter looks.
https://www.amazon.com/Lechuza-Balconer ... ds=lechuza
My VFTs are still very small but when I started buying them, my ultimate goal is to get 2 or 3 different cultivars (I have 3 right now) and let them grow out to fill a big pot each. I really like how Matt has his mother plants setups with one cultivar per pot. The problem with that is, we live in an apartment and I have to supplement lighting with T5HOs since our balcony only gets about 3 to 4 hours of direct sunlight. The other problem is the sheer size of each pot. We don't have room for 3 big pots like those that Matt have. Also, the cost of long fiber sphagnum moss to fill each one of those will add up and make re-pottings costly. Especially right now that my plants are still small.
I don't want to mix the 3 cultivars in one big pot but it seems like a trough style planter is more space and cost efficient compared to having 3 separate pots. That particular one that I linked above will also fit perfectly under my T5HO light fixture. It's not as deep as I want it to be but I think it should be deep enough. The total height dimension is 7" which would give me about 5" to 5.5" inside depth after taking into account the water reservoir underneath. It seems like all the deep self watering pot only comes in big sizes. My question is, how do pots such as this perform in keeping the soil moist? This particular brand includes porous substrate to regulate the water transfer between the reservoir and the potting mix. I'm thinking of not using this included substrate and instead filling the bottom part (where it touches the water) with LFSM, followed by a few inches of peat/perlite mix (to save some space on LFSM cost) and filling the rest of the way with LFSM.
I might still get the really big pots later on once we get a house and have more space, but for now, I really like how this self watering planter looks.