Hey everyone, I just wanted to share an experiment I am trying with my stapeliad type plants. I've been trying to grow them indoors since the summertime, and have had luck with some and not so much with others. I've been growing them in 60% perlite and 40% compost, and had to add Bonide granules to them after discovering mealy bugs in them all about a month or two ago. The granules in the soil seemed to help but they're still not growing much for me even with T5 grow lights.

However, I've been rooting cuttings I've gotten in a tupperware full of perlite that I add water to the sides of every 3-4 days when it's dry. I keep it on a heat pad and have noticed that a lot of them have grown roots quickly, and even new arms branching off the main cutting. A rhytidocaulon that I left to callous over after it rotted seems to have grown a flower bud after sitting in this perlite/heat pad setup.

I've been wondering if this might work for a larger plant, so I took one that I had a double of (an Orbea semota var lutea) and put it in a plastic cup of perlite with water added to see if it might do better than the pot with soil. I'm keeping it on a heat pad, near my grow lights but not directly under them. It's been this way for about 5 days now, and hasn't shown any bad signs yet, but does have a little bit of new growth I think.

Below are some pictures of my cuttings box and then the Orbea cup. The closeup picture of the small cutting if a piece of Orbea Paradoxa that I had a small plant of, but was attacked by mealies and withered away. I decided to take this one arm off and stick it in my cutting box after cleaning it. The tip that was shriveled seems to have dried out, and an entire new arm has grow on of the side of it.

The few that are in my soil/perlite pots that HAVE grown flower buds, always abort the flowers or they dry up, even with a little misting or water added when buds form. I don't know if it's too warm in my sunroom where the rest of my plants are, and that's causing their individual pots to dry out too quickly, or if these just prefer a constant heating pad and damp perlite conditions like in the box itself.

I'll try to keep this updated with pictures of the Orbea I'm experimenting with in it's own cup. Has anyone tried this type of system out for stapelias before? Not even sure if it's "hydroponic" growing...but so far these seem to respond well to it-

(sorry these aren't the prettiest photos...)

Hi BC,

That is an interesting experiment but I'm not sure what you are going to learn. You need to test one variable at a time and keep a control group. You won't know if its the straight perlite, the extra water (or less water - it is perlite) or bottom heat that worked out for you.

Not sure either Daisy, just happy to see the cuttings growing so wellnin the perlite/water/heat combo.

Hopefully it works on some of the larger plants

Time will tell

We expect progress reports (and photos).

Definitely.

Has anyone else tried growing these this way, or hydroponically?

Just a quick update. I noticed this morning that some cuttings I had thrown in my heated box of perlite/water have new growth on them. They probably went in there a week or two ago.

I'll keep watching them to see if they continue to grow. They're growing long arms out of the sides of them (the circular one in the corner in the second picture was just that small round piece when I put it in, now has the arms coming off)

These aren't the most exciting photos, so I'll add some photos of things that have flowered for me over the last few months of growing these for everyone to see-

Love your collection of stapelia. I had never seen the green one listed on your plant list.

I only have one stapelia. It went flower crazy this year. Usually get only a few flowers at a time a couple times a year. This past September she had 30+ buds on her. . They have been opening 2-4 flowers at a time ever since and I still see new buds forming.

I tried to load a photo but it comes up garbage code. So lets try this.
https://garden.org/thread/view...

I'm hoping that she will set seeds. Flies love her. They keep dancing on the flowers spreading pollen.

Thanks Tamara! Your plant is beautiful, so large and so many flowers. I found my first large stapelia this past week. I found it when I was in NYC for some meetings and took her to my place upstate to be in my sunroom with my other plants. The owner didn't know the exact type but it has stems similar to yours. It seems to have little pops of new growth on it already after I watered it a few days ago.....not sure if they're buds or new arms but I'll wait and see.

How do you grow your stapelia? I see your in California so I'm assuming outside which I hear they love, if the weather is right.

I've tried everything from pure pumice, pure perlite, mostly dirt, compost, cactus mix, and a mix between all of those hah. So far my Rhytidocaulon (the gray/brown stems with tiny starfish) seem to be the happiest in the tiniest pot possible and a mix of 60% perlite and 40% forest compost. All of my other ones are a mix bag, but I am growing indoors only so it is a constant battle of testing new conditions for them.

This current test of heated perlite with water will be interesting. I've read they like to be pot bound before growing a lot, so this test might not lead to much if there's a bunch in the same pot/tupperware.

But I've read so many conflicting theories for these plants that at this point I figured I might as well try some new ways of growing.

Anyways, thanks for sharing your photos. I'm hoping my larger one flowers some day. Those massive hairy flowers are really something special. How big are the flowers on it?

Here is my new larger one...if anyone can tell what type it might be (grandiflora...gigantea?) let me know. Just excited to have found one in person and not online, like all of my small ones.

Tamara, when you upload a pic, it shows a line of code until you continue to preview or finish.

purpleinopp said:Tamara, when you upload a pic, it shows a line of code until you continue to preview or finish.

Some of the photos are uploading as garbage code because of the "attack" we are currently under from some data miner. If you copy your text and then click "finished", it will go through that "checking your browser" thing, come up with an empty reply box, then you can paste your copy and then the photos will load properly.

The code I got when uploading photos was from the attack.

I'm in zone 9b. MY Stapelia is outside next to my steps all year. They get full sun from ≈noon every day (my house faces west). They get watered whenever I remember to water them. When I do water, I just fill the tray they are in a couple of inches deep. That can be anywhere from once a week or once a month, even during the summer. I had some cuttings in a pot on my porch that I had forgotten about because the were behind some extra pots. They went at least 2 months without water. They were sad, but alive. They are doing much better now that the are not hiding.

My plant isn in generic potting soil with a bit of added pearlite. I may have thrown in a bit of coco coir when I moved her up to a larger pot. The flowers are ≈4-6 inches wide.

Hope your new plant blooms for you.

Decided to repot my Larryleachia this morning which was in a tiny 2 inch pot. Turned out his roots were much bigger than I thought. The one plant that's done really well for me. He's been in pure pumice, watered every other day with fertilizer. First picture is August when I got it. Might try the rest of these in pure pumice again with more watering if this perlite/water on heatpad doesn't work out

Brendan, I'm impressed. If you had asked our opinion before you set out on this "hydroponic stapeliad" project, I (and I think, all the rest of us) would have told you it would never work.

Great job of climbing out of the box and destroying all my paradigms!

Daisy, might just be my conditions with them under a lot of light and heat indoors. No idea but soil definitely seemed to be hurting them. I used four types, not sure why it wasn't working with the mixes.

Going to try a few more duplicate plants I have tomorrow. Maybe all of my plants will end up in pure perlite on heat pads hah. My mendinilla plants seemed much happier when I took them out of soil and put them into grit mix a few months ago. That's what started this whole experiment.

Tamara, great info. Less water has lead to most of mine shriveling up or any flowers buds shriveling and falling off. And then when I add just a shot glass of water it seems to stay too wet and cold for the roots.

Hopefully this experiment will prove they want plenty of water and heat from below. Somehow the roots haven't rotted yet on the few with good root systems, or been drowned. No idea but I'll keep testing different types I have. Not much to lose at this point.

That makes sense as I think Medinilla are epiphytic.

Daisy: yeah I tried learning as much as I could about the Medinillas because I love their leaves and strange flowers. Slowly I've gotten them happy with no soil and more water. And then the mealies attacked before I knew how to get rid of them...I'll try again with more of them next spring if the one I have left keeps doing well. .

Here's a flavopurpurea I placed in this semi-hydro/hydro system about 3 days ago. I put it and a few other types in their own solo cups of damp perlite this morning. Keeping them on the heat pad that gets the perlite temps inside the cup to 93-95 degrees F.

This is what three days in this setup did to the roots (that were mostly brown/yellow like everything I've unpotted from my soil/grit mixes). New white roots on all sides that were touching the perlite the last few days. Hopefully it continues to grow in it's own cup

The second picture is another flavopurepurea I've had for a while and continues to grow buds but they abort every time over the last few weeks. Unpotted it this morning and cleaned it off to test in the perlite/water combo. It's roots didn't look great, though there was one that looked sort of healthy towards the bottom. Will be interesting to see if it's own cup of perlite with fertilizer-water helps it grow and actually flower.

Here's an update on the rhytidocaulon cutting I have in my cuttings box. It's been sitting in about 1.5 inch of damp perlite in the box, on a heat pad.

It opened the flower bud it's been growing for about a week now, and there are three new buds developing on the new growth tip.

I'm not sure how it's surviving all the water in the perlite since there's no drainage holes in the container, but it seems to like it and the heat mat underneath it all. The temperature in the damp perlite is 98-101 degrees F. I've been measuring it the last few days.

BrendanCS said:Definitely.

Has anyone else tried growing these this way, or hydroponically?

Hi Brendan. I have been growing some of my cacti in a similar fashion. I started doing this about 1990 and I have obtained excellent results - the plants have grown robustly - nice and plump with excellent spination and flowers/fruit. On occasion I have used coarse perlite instead of pumice for the substrate - it works just as well for me.

I devoted a web page to this titled "Cultivating Cacti semi-hydroponically" at ………

http://jp29.org/brculthydro.ht...

……… if you would like to see the photos that accompany the following text, please visit there (it would be very time and space consuming for me to post them here, sorry).

The text from my web page ………

I use drain-to-waste methodology ………

https://www.gchydro.com/info/w...

Equipment and Materials (photo)

Potting container of prepared pumice - 2¾" plastic pots.
Acidifier solution - Liquid fertilizer with micronutrients - pH testing solution with vial.
Garden hose power spray attachment - large fine kitchen sieve (for washing raw pumice)

(photo)

Hydroponics Drain to Waste Methodology:

In a Hydroponic Drain to Waste growing System (also known as run to waste system) an inorganic growing medium is periodically saturated with a correctly pH balanced water/nutrient solution according to the plant's requirements. The water/nutrient solution is not re-cycled or re-used. A periodic flushing is required to prevent fertilizer salt build-up.

Information and Reference: Why run a Drain to Waste System?

I do not actually waste my nutrient solution. I save what issues from the container drainage holes in a storage container, check the pH in order to ascertain it's current state and use it as needed on other cacti and succulents growing in my garden patch.

Containers (photo)

I use plastic pots with generous drainage holes.

Substrate (photo)

I use an inorganic medium that consists of just one component -- what I call "freshly mined and raw" pumice - unscreened with the fines present. I use pumice because it is readily available to me free, is of light weight and I have always had great success using it in my growing media. Similar inorganic products such as "Kitty Litter" or other expanded clay material - sometimes mixed with sharp grit, gravel or decomposed granite - will work just as well.

Freshly mined raw pumice as described above (photo)

I don't screen out the small granular pumice fines - but I do wash out the dust using a fine sieve in conjunction with a "power spray head" garden hose as dust tends to migrate to the bottom of containers where it can form a drainage impeding "sludge".

Washing out dust using a "power spray head" garden hose and fine sieve (photo)

Washing continues until the water runs from the sieve reasonably clear (photo)

The pumice described above after washing it to remove dust (photo)

Exemplar Discocactus grown in pumice prepared as described above (photo)

Water/Nutrient solution:

I use Tucson City tap water in conjunction with the recommended amount of Algoplus (Algoflash) 5N.7P.5K Cactus Formula liquid fertilizer which contains magnesium and micro-nutrients. I check and adjust the solution pH to 5.5 - 6.0 using a General Hydroponics GH1514 pH Control Kit prior to each use.

Watering (using the nutrient solution described above):

Active growing period With the arrival of warm spring weather I water my plants with increasing frequency. I insure my plants receive copious amounts of water during the hot Arizona summer months. When I water during this time I do it from above and soak the plants until the nutrient solution runs freely from the drainage holes.

Because these cacti are CAM plants (stomata opening at night during very hot weather) I water at early evening during our summer months.

Resting period (winter): The plants that I grow, being from tropical habitats, do not require a winter cold resting period in order to produce flowers the following spring (that is one reason I favor them) - winter dormancy for them results from the very dry conditions they experience during this time (described as a period of great aridity in their habitat). Therefor they only receive occasional very light watering during this time to prevent shriveling and maintain general plant health.

Periodic watering/flushing with pH adjusted city tap water:

Performed monthly during the spring and summer (except during our "Monsoon" season) in order to eliminate fertilizer salt build-up. I check and adjust the city tap water pH to 5.5 - 6.0. using a General Hydroponics GH1514 pH Control Kit prior to use.

Hi James

Thanks for the tips. I actually discovered your website a month or so ago and it's what got me thinking about this whole process.

I haven't tried it with drainage holes yet because they seem to like the heat pad, but may have to if some of these don't survive the semi hydroponic way I'm testing.

No matter what soil I used they seemed to eventually all get either root die back from drying out off the heat pad or root rot. Hopefully this perlite I'm using keeps them more airy and away from anything that might cause rot. Hopefully they grow and do as well as yours