Hints on Potting Clivia 1

Do you have a problem with rotting roots and plants flopping over as they become detached from their root systems? You have followed the advice of other clivia growers and use a well aerated, fast draining potting mix and still suffer from the above problem? You keep fighting fungal attacks? Although not the answer to all like problems, following these hints from a friend in New Zealand will certainly end many of them:

1. If you have clivia in one gallon nursery pots or plastic pots, measure up one third the distance of the height of the pot from the bottom and draw a ring around the pot at that height. Melt or drill holes 3/8ths to ½ inch in diameter along that line, spaced an inch to two inches apart depending on the size hole you melt or drill, all the way around the pot. You may later want to change the size of holes depending on your potting mix. Experiment until the size is right for you. What this accomplishes is it keeps the potting medium at about the same moisture content throughout the pot. So that while the top of the undrilled pot’s  top soil might have been dry, the bottom of the potting medium may have been wet. Using this method gives you a fairly accurate indication of the moisture level of the entire contents of the pot and gives the plant roots the same conditions throughout the pot.  It also helps flush built up salts from fertilization on out of the pot when needed and provides more aeration to the root system. This method also helps you gauge when to water.

2. If you have clay pots or glazed pots you can do the same with a little more effort with a ceramic drill bit.

3. Are those pots sitting in a saucer? If they are and you water well, the water runs through the potting medium and into the saucer where it sits and is then pulled back up in the lower potting medium by capillary action, making the lower half of the medium a prime soggy area for root rot. Use rocks, marbles or other objects to keep the bottom drain hole of the pot up away from the water that it contains. This will help ensure that the potting medium is of about the same moisture level throughout the pot.

©2003 American Clivia Society