Seramis media for Orchids - proper use and considerations 

+bethnoirable yes it would be the dream :D

+Diego Pineda thank you, I cannot wait for the day with no spider mite damage on all my orchids :(

Great to hear :D

+David Graf happy to hear your orchids do great :D so overall are you happy with growtone? can they keep in that much moisture as seramis?

+MissOrchidGirl I think so. Since I grow in plastic net pots, the orchids receive good air movement. All the roots are healthy and the plants are growing. I began experimenting with misting two years ago when I decided I did not want to move 40+ orchids inside to water them. My daily misting also gives me a chance to watch my orchids closely. I keep meticulous records, including when I repot, when I see spikes, when I see flowers, and even how long flowers last. The recordkeeping allows me to stay in touch with my orchids.

+David Graf that is a great schedule you made for yourself, if it feels comfortable to you and plants respond ok it's the dream ;)

+Katherine Harris how about its water retention properties and absorption? is it anything like seramis? I read they were made from glass afterwards but hopefully they work the same :) about seaweed, I never tested it so I cannot tell, I might in the following months :) my first thought is that if the orchid pot is not established and we keep using chlorine water and letting it dry, there will be no bacteria to convert nitrogen from the seaweed into something plants can pick up. Now I am not sure if seaweed has any nutrients or nitrogen at least so, this might not apply :)

+MissOrchidGirl I do not use the Growstone glass based product as I was afraid it's supposed larger water retention could be too much for my Catts. I chose the LECA Hydrotone clay balls instead. I'm making an assumption that being an expanded clay product, the Seramis and the Hydrotone water retention abilities would be very similar.The climate here is humid most of the year and I'll just have to see how the plants adjust from the bark media I was using. I purchased the seaweed for it's alleged large source of micro-nutrients, and I plan to mix it with my normal water soluble fertilizer and foliar spray the plants. Please read the following article re: seaweed homeguides.sfgate.com/seaweed-fertilizer-orchids-30814.html

+Katherine Harris from what I observe leca is a lot less water retentive that seramis, wich can be a good thing for Catts or humid environments, but seramis holds its weight in water. It's more about the porosity of the material and seramis is more porous, that would be the main difference between them. not sure how it compares to grow stone from this point of view but by the looks of pictures and the chart on their website, it's more water retentive than hydroton. Ow that is a very good article on seaweed, combining it with a macro nutrient fert is a good option I think. I guess it will just need observing and see if it makes a difference and if it works out as you expect it to :)

+Katherine Harris oooh ps: there is a mistake in the article, nitrogen is not used in decomposition so orchids in bark media don't need more nitrogen than others ;) just a misconception from long time ago but it's not true ;)

+Luíza I am prefering it as well, I just have some orchids that have a much slower growth and by the time they finally settle in I need to repot and disturb them again. I think inorganic is particularly good for them :)

+Silvia Marengo I just talked to Ralf from Orchitop and yes it is exclusive for them they requested the bigger sized granules :)

+Silvia Marengo Hi Silvia and Danny! I am also from germany and are using the Seramis Orchid Mix with Bark for the first time now. I am quite concerned that the batch I got has some very small pieces of bark and clay and that this might drown the orchid. They are much smaller than the prebought bark pieces which come with the Orchid. As I let them drown the first time in filtered rain water, the water turned all black. My question is now: did I just got a bad package or is it normal? How much do I need to water now? The first one I let sit for an hour, the other one I just rinsed with tap water as it is now in a bigger pot. The first one was also an emergency repot. She is in bloom right now, but the leaves are wrinkly and lampy. I tried to compensate with a long bath, but it didn't help. Turns out it had fungus and only three big roots are remaining in the pot. She has some air roots, though. Should I put them in the soil? Thanks for reading till the end! I am new to proper care for orchids. +MissOrchidGirl I really like your videos and have learned very much from them :)

+Sabrina mozaique Hi Sabrina! Yes Seramis is usually very dirty. I usually measure how much I need for the plant, then I put it in a strainer and rinse it off. Regarding the bark size, they definitely can vary from batch to batch. For The watering I would suggest to check the roots color, and if you see any umidity inside the pot.As Danny always says, it's not about "how much" but "how often" :)If you have phalaenopsis soil is absolutely "verboten". give the plant time, and do not over-stress with another change of substrat. Give it time, and I am sure the plant will be ok! :) Viele grüße Silvia

Hi, thanks for the tips :D I never tried growstone, but I am thinking of trying it just to test out its properties and see how orchids will do. I will make a test one day, just after I settle in a bit more and hopefully will make some good informational videos on it :)

I have about 25 orchids in growstone since September 2016 and I also have mixed results...the idea seemed so appealing to me (but seramis was unavailable in Canada) so I gambled, which I now regret a bit but not ready to admit my fiasco just yet...phals with great root systems lost about 90% of their roots..no matter if I tried to clean them over and over, high humidity(light) room or low more water or less(upper layer dries pretty fast) the established orchids didn't take it well and as a result all of them in ICU and doing better in a cup of water then in growstone=(....however oncidiums, cattleya and brassavola with 0 to minimal roots adapted to it pretty well (after being initially placed in water to get some roots going and then placing some moss on the top of the growstone) I am confused as whether old roots (e.g.) on phals die because they just not used to the media or because it isn't suitable for them ..I did measure water retention and 135 g of growstone holds about 100ml of water, ph of the drained water shows about 6 and if I stick the paper on the stone about 8(but again litmus paper not very precise). Have you experienced massive root loss when you transferred your orchids in seramis? Thanks

I havent tried seramis, but I think it holds even more water than growstone. Many people seem to have a lot of problems when potting into seramis. All my plants that are in growstone have done just fine. If I need it to dry out faster, I add something to it that holds less water. I talk about this in my angraecum bosseri video. One of the reasons why roots die when moved to mixes with very different properties (that few people talk about) is because as roots grow, they are adapted to the mix that was there when they were growing and they are able, to a point, to adapt to conditions that are gradual. So, for example, if you go from a chunky bark mix that dries quickly to a growstone that dries much slower, the existing roots may die off because they are going from one kid of mix to another that has very different properties. Another example is when you bury aerial roots and they die. However-if you slowly cover them with mix, they can adjust a bit, and as the new root portions grow, they are perfectly adapted to the condions in the oot. There is a myth that Cattleyas (and others) kill off their old roots, after repotting. But this is false. The roots are killed by the factors that occur during and after the repotting process. The plant is not killing them off because they are no longer needed. They can keep their roots far longer than people believe if they are not disturbed. Often it's due to improper post-repotting care and/or because of the major change in conditions in the pot. This explains why your existing roots died when potted into grow stones, but the new ones that grow into it do just fine. This is also why you should never, ever repot unless the plant is just beginning to grow new roots from the base of the lead pseudobulb (in sympodials) or base of the plant (monopodials.)

Thanks for your reply, I've checked your videos. I agree that orchids adapt to whatever media they grow into ...just kind of disappointing to loose lots of roots in established orchids...it seems like Danny didn't have this problem with seramis. Do you have any videos with your phals/dendrobiums or vandas in growstone? So your concerns about hight pH levels (with growstone) didn't affect your orchids? Did your phals eventually adapted to it? did they developed completely new root systems or you were able to maintain their old ones? I am thinking about trying mix of growstone and leca for my vanda (she has a new thick root from the base + lots of side roots starting to grow from existing roots) by adding just 1 layer of the mixture into the large basket and hopefully adapting it to the growstone/leca mixture, but I am afraid that even though it used to the soaking and high humidity in might be damaged

First- I would not try to add medium to the vanda at all if it's a mature plant. If you loose the roots, there is so much top growth that won't have a root system to support it, and it will suffer badly. (Lol, here I am in the process of doing exactly what you are talking about with a large sobennikoffia) If you have a hard time keeping it watered enough because it is bare root, you can hang some live Spanish moss around the roots and basket, you can soak it in a bucket for a few hours at each watering, and raise the humidity. Then next time you buy vandas, get ones already in pots or get youngish ones. I know that's probably not the answer you want to hear, but in some cases, we cannot force the plant to do what we want it to so it is more convenient for us. If the vanda is not attached to the basket, you can set it in a pot bare root with some live Spanish moss around the top and around the outer roots in a clear pot and that will make a huge difference to the plant. All that said, without looking at your plants and their root systems and seeing your growing condions, it's really hard for me to suggest what you should do, but I can say, not knowing any of this, that I don't think you should use any inorganic medium by itself with any of your plants. I think you should have some measure of organic medium in the mix. Yes, I know how frustrating it is to loose roots on good orchids. My collection was nearly decimated years ago when I didn't know how bad my water was and that orchids are sensitive to salts. For the record, salts will build up even if you're using pure water if you don't water correctly, and they especailly build up in clay media and pots. On the growers on RU-vid who have used pure seramis- they have had major issues with it. Roger tested a few plants in it and he had to take them all out and repot them because the roots turned to mush. If I recall, seramis and orchitop pots were made for eachother which says Something about the media. With the growstone and pH- I soaked mine for days and days in vinegar and citric acid while testing the pH which never seemed to go down and stay down so I only used it on a few plants. The pH of it has always been a concern of mine which is why, even though I have tons of growstone, I have very few plants in it. One should never ever pot a whole collection into a media that one is unfamiliar with before testing it out on a few plants that don't matter for at least two years. And-even though I have grown a few things in grostone for several years, I would not feel comfortable potting up my collection into it. I don't think it's an easy medium for the grower and I don't think it's an easy medium for the plant. I don't have any videos of any other orchids in growstone. The phal in it isn't doing as well as the phals in other media, but I don't know what the roots look like since it's in a black pot. My best advice is to learn how to grow The plant in the medium that it is already in and use a similar medium when it is time to repot. Learn to grow in traditional medium. The people who learn to do this get farther so much faster than the ones who keep looking for a perfect medium because orchids do not like to be disturbed and if a grower keeps changing the medium and repotting every six months or every year, the plant never has a chance to get established. I think we all go on this quest for an easy medium that will grow the plants wonderfully and won't break down and it's one of the absolute worst things orchid growers do. The number one killer of orchids is overwatering The number two killer of orchids is repotting. There is no perfect medium that will work for the grower (that you can put all orchids in that will allow you to never repot) However- there is a medium that professional orchid growers have been using for almost 70 years because it works so well for the orchids and the grower and that is the Off mix (bark/perlite/charcoal).

+Juliet Healy Thanks Juliet, hope it will work for you :D I think a mix with leca would do great since you do have the potential of high humidity :) but better experiment a bit first :)

Buna! As vrea sa cumpar granulele de Seramis care ti-au ramas, daca nu ai alte planuri pentru ele. Am incercat sa comand de pe site, dar transportul e de 4 ori mai scump decat pretul ca atare si pentru 2-3 pungi chiar nu se merita. Presupun ca, oricum, nu o sa le poti lua la mutare si o sa comanzi altele in Cipru. Eu sunt in Bucuresti si as putea sa cumpar unele lucruri pe care nu le poti lua, chiar anumite plante pe care intentionezi sa le lasi in tara. Pupici.

+LevelD1985 seramis.com/seramis-produktwelt/seramis-spezial-substrat-fuer-orchideen.html

+LevelD1985 the special substrate is good too, I was just looking for a full inorganic alternative, as organics degrade after a while.

+MissOrchidGirl Yes I use the special substrate aswell and I like it. Although it's a bit pricey. However, what came into my mind yesterday was ... I would place orchids that grow on rocks on seramis and orchids that grow on trees on organic media or into a mix of both. Maybe it's good to give them what they would prefer in nature. OrchidNature ;))

+LevelD1985 hmmm well if you look at it abstract yes it makes sense, if you go into details.. not really :) most probably orchids don't find pinus maritima in their habitat, so the bark we use is not homeland for them. they also grow on live bark not dead bark, which ends up being a killer if not repotted in time. also they attach more to the sides of the pot than media itself so that is plastic or clay. not really naturey :P with clay it's the same thing, they grow on rocks that are not water aretentive, they are not clay either so.. hmmm not very naturey either. but I get your point, it's always fun to experiment but it's really not as close to nature as it might look like so they will respond differently ;)

+John John we don't have a date yet, depends on weather and other things but the sooner the better :)

+Leah oh thanks for that tip, ow damn it appears it's not actually working the same as seramis :( that's a bit of a let down, not sure what other equivalent there is out there

I am using vermiculite for my tiny seedlings and have found an Australian supplier of larger perlite, so will order some of that... when I have used all my Growstone 😬

+mysticshining good luck with grow stone, I just read they are recycled glass :D so it's not the same material as seramis but from their chart you can see they retain more water than hydroton so that should be good in warm dry climates :)

I read something about that too, they do seem to alter the ph and sadly alkalinity it not necessarily the best as it can affect nutrient uptake. I never had growthstone though so I cannot tell for sure :) seramis doesn't affect ph though, I tested it.

+Richard Lewis Hi, no the bag isn't big, each bag is 2.5 l, approximately 1 kg. To give you an idea, for all my orchids I used about 30 liters so far, but I also used the small seramis and hydroton. There is a store that sells the small granules in US, this is the comparison ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uqRLaWGpnDc.html and in the description of that video you have a link for the USA store.

I did order the 2.5l granules and the 7.0l of the Orchid mix of the seramis already. The 2.5l bag of granules is a pretty small bag. I don't know how you used it, because I found it difficult. I tried washing it first and it would stick to everything. The second time I used it I washed it after potting my plants. As for the seramis Orchid bark mix, I liked using it for my phalaenopsis's. I'm hopping that it will rehydrate my plant's. Since the mother plant had two babies attached it was harder to water and keep it hydrated. I was also interested in the seramis fertilizer as well. Have you tried it and what is your take on it? In your opinion about it is it worth given it a try?

+Richard Lewis Indeed it tends to stick when wet, I just place the orchid inside and just rinse it afterwards :)) I never tried the fertilizer, do youknow what nutrients it contains? I can't seem to find a label.

+MissOrchidGirl the label says nitrogen, phosphate and potassium 3/6/3 and trace elements. I don't know why it says potassium because the seramis has it in it already. I had a friend translate the bag.

+Richard Lewis well the substrate fertilizer will deplete at some point I suspect and needs to be replenished. To be honest I don't like the ratio on this fertilizer, too much P in comparison to others, I am now using a low P one actually :)) so for now I am testing this one and see how it goes ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Orkegtu_6HY.html

+Alma K. Hi Alma, do let me know how growstone works, I never tried it. Ph btw, here is a link to a seramis vendor in USA if you ever want to try it out germandeli.com/searchResults?keywords=seramis&order=custitem_is_orderable:desc,relevance

+MissOrchidGirl OMG!!! I thought it was sold only in Europe, I'll order it right away, you are an angel, thank you so much!!!!

+Alma K. my pleasure, get a smaller quantity first maybe to try it out and see if it works for you :)

+Janice Upton Hi Janice, that is something else, they will restock the seramis and I will edit the link when they do. I will check now though!

+Janice Upton ok no they didn't get full stock yet :) they just ran out of stock because I think people purchased it all.. I purchased 50 bags :P

+kale fiend Was the hydrogen peroxide diluted correctly? Without that hint on h2o2 it would sound a lot like a fusarium infection. If it's fusarium, it's a serious illness. The roots lignify and the leaves yellow near the stem and fall off one after the other very quickly. It's hard to give any advice without seeing the plant, but you can google it. It might be necessary to cut the stem.

+Bumblebee Oh wow thanks, i sure will google it. I have never heard of that infection and it makes a lot of sense.

+Alexis Manon Thanks. I am watering it more frequently but im very inconsistent with how long i leave it in water when i do soak it and sometime i forgetr about it because im so busy. thats probably part of my problem too and KY winter doesnt help either.

Oh no! I think I did this exact mistake. I kept freaking out because first I found red dots on my orchid roots. I assumed they were spidermite eggs. So I sprayed my phal with pure hydrogen peroxide. Then repoted it in sphagnum moss. A week later I noticed mold so I freaked out again and sprayed it again. I dont think my phal is gonna make it :(

@@rachelzavala57 this is exactly whats happening to my orchid now. please tell me your phal survived.

+Christopher E. Pineda my pleasure :)

+Iva Viseux well peat moss can be quite damaging to the roots, especially if you are not careful. I would go for a mix of bark and sphagnum moss rather than peat. Moss can be found at online stores that sell media and accessories, even in your area. So give it a look. With moss you can opt to add just a top layer, or make a mix with bark. However it will degrade faster than bark, nothing comes without cons. There is always seramis though :)

+MissOrchidGirl Thank you for the advice! What i did for the zygos is that i put Orchiata on the bottom of the pot, then i put the plant and 3 table spoons of bark/peat moss mix and then i filled up the top with Orchiata bark while tapping and letting bark go between the roots. I hope 3 tablespoons of peat moss mix wont kill my zygos :s I will wait according to your advice and not repot my cymbidium at all unless its ok to put it in pure bark while waiting to find/ purchase either sphagnum moss or seramis.

+Iva Viseux zygos are kinda semi terrestrial so that shouldn't be damaging ;)

+MissOrchidGirl I finally received my seramis (which is tiny as grains of peas x_X) shall i mix it with my orchiata bark before i plant my cymbidium in it or pure seramis will be fine for a cymbi? Since it is my first cymbi i am not sure, shall i make ventilation holes on the pot?

+Iva Viseux I have half a dozen large cymbidiums and the same number of small size ones - and I grow them all in bark, just bark. Summers are spent under shade cloth on the back porch, winters are on the front porch so they can stay dry. We're in central California where we have Mediteranean weather. I water them 2X/week when growing and feed them 20-20-20 weakly weekly. The bummer is every other year I have to repot them right after blooming because the bark breaks down. I'm thinking large pellets of growstone might be worth a try. I can tell you that peat moss will choke the roots just like potting mix so only do that on the plants you don't like and nobody will take.

+Zane's Wildflora hmmm.. it would be like one week you'd only eat soup and then 1 week meat.. might sustain you, but might give you deficiencies :)) so nope. yes providing the colors separately (on 2 strips) at the same time is the way to go ;)

+Zane's Wildflora to elaborate a bit, the red spectrum contributes to a certain type of chemistry within the plant, while blue contributes to a different chemistry.. if you jumble them up you debalance the entire orchid and it can end up looking wonky :)) I was kidding when I said elaborate, I am no chemist, you get the idea ;)

+MissOrchidGirl you should have an arguing job, i would love arguing with you, you have really logical explanations when things are getting real :D not because im on the side of using only one color on one day, but what if we consider that orchids are slow plants, maybe it would mess up other plants but since orchids are slow, maybe for them it would be like changing the color of the light every ten seconds for a normal plants, and another idea, what if we consider that different parts of the day and different weather conditions provide differents light for the plant in nature (for example a cloudy day is the same as a cold white light, and the sunset and sunrise is warm white light) so maybe it could even have positive effects on the orchid :D

+Zane's Wildflora alrighty let's get technical. blue wavelengths encourage vegetative growth in plants, red wavelengths helps with photosynthesis and flowering.. as a general idea. However both of these work simultaneously, their role is not only what I just said.. it is rather more complicated than this and I am not the best person to explain it. but, in lack of plant responses from blue wavelengths, a plant cannot fully take advantage of the benefits of red wavelengths and vice versa. I have no doubt in my mind that orchids will look.. ok in no matter what light you give them, but on the long run they might grow slower, perform weaker or not flower at all due to these weird changes. I get that economy is the issue here? you might as well just go for daylight if you only use lights in winter.. or even purple. I think the ideal situation is to actually give both blue and red and why not, even a strip of daylight for more added intensity. for the proper explanation here's an article :P www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3975419/ needs a few reads to understand but.. I try lol

+LevelD1985 haha never read that description but yes Ralf confirmed this is Seramis, but the big granules are exclusive for Orchitop ;)