What if you could grow 300+ indoor plants without hauling watering cans to the shower every weekend… and without even dealing with soil?
In this episode of the Best of Growing Joy series, we’re revisiting one of the most amazing approaches to plant care: passive hydroponics, often called semi-hydro. My friend Kay from @inrootedlove is back for what we’re calling Passive Hydro 2.0, and we’re diving into the real-life details of growing plants this way. We talk about LECA vs Pon, root pruning, reservoirs, fertilizer concerns, and what happens when life gets busy and you forget about your plants for a while.
If you’ve experimented with LECA, are curious about Pon, or want to better understand passive hydroponics for indoor plants, Kay is the perfect person to learn from. This conversation will help you troubleshoot common issues, understand the method more deeply, and grow your plants with greater confidence.
In this episode, we learn:
- What Kay's Plant Number is
- How Kay manages to keep 200+ plants in her home happy and healthy with NO grow lights
- The home characteristics Kay looked for when buying a home so her plants could thrive [9:00]
- What Maria secretly dreams of for the next home (it's not what you think) [10:00]
- What is Semi or Passive Hydro [10:55]
- Reasons for why you should try Semi or Passive Hydroponics [12:52]
- Kay's experience having small children and a large plant collection [12:37]
- Maria's main takeaways from a year of experimenting with semi-hydro: what she is doing great and where she still needs help [13:50]
- How do net pots work when roots start to grow out of the pot [15:43]
- How to handle orchid roots in LECA [17:0]
- How to handle aroid roots in LECA [17:20]
- Root pruning [17:50]
- The story behind Kay's gorgeous Albo Monstera [19:30]
- Is it bad for plants roots to touch the water in a Semi Hydro or Passive Hydro set up? [20:00]
- When to repot your plant in semi hydro [21:00]
- What happened when Maria forgot about her plants in LECA for 2 months [22:40]
- How can you avoid root rot when using semi hydroponics or passive hydroponics? [24:25]
- Nutrient troubleshooting deep dive [27:25]
- Kay elaborates on how she uses Azomax to manage pests in her large collection [31:19]
- What are the signs of a healthy plant in semi hydro [34:30]
- What does a healthy root look like in LECA
- How dry can you let your reservoir get before you kill your plant [37:16]
- How to gage water levels with opaque pots [37:50]
- What's an appropriate transition time for a plant to go through transplant shock? [41:26]
- Kays product she uses to help plants transition more efficiently [42:15]
- LECA VS PON: their differences, pros and cons [43:58]
- What PON lechuza is made up of [44:20]
- What plants Kay chooses to put PON in over LECA [45:00]
- Why Kay doesn't put all her plants in PON [45:01]
- What plants Kay plants in PON [45:20]
- Why Kay grows anthurium in PON [46:48]
- Does a PON set up look different than a LECA set up? [47:26]
- Why fertilizing with PON will look very different than fertilizing in LECA
- Are there any plant your shouldn't put in passive hydro? [49:10]
- How Kay uses PON completely different on her arid plants to help better replicate their natural environments [49:37]
- My Raphidophora tetrasperma propagation experiment
Mentioned in our conversation:
Have you experimented with LECA or Pon yet?
Check out the full show notes and blog to learn how passive hydroponics works and how to get started!
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