BCSS - Forum

Couldn't hurt to have Tina and others posting some of their amazing plants on the BCSS Reddit page

I can just about post on Instagram you want me to learn more new tricks

If I learnt then anyone can (though I have to admit I don't find it the easiest tool to use and prefer the forum!)

Your collection is pretty amazing! The idea of extending your window space with the glass shelves is great, I just showed my wife and she rolled her eyes and said 'you're not doing every window', which means I can at least do the ones in my hobby room. Thanks for the inspiration!

Thank you, unfortunately I don't have those windows anymore as we moved house because they did work well. They could get pretty hot in the summer if I forgot to open them up a bit.

Can I suggest you use some toughened glass as the plants can get pretty heavy after watering and make sure they don't block any fire escapes in your house. Mine were easy to pull out as there was just a bit of double sided tape holding them in place.

There were some calculations online for working out the weight the different types of glass can hold but I can't remember now.

Good luck!

Bit of an update, sad to look back at the ones I’ve killed since the first time I posted last year. At least it makes some more room for the others I suppose

Not looking that bad- happier than mine, plants still know when its winter & often don't grow as much even with supplemental lighting.
Your Dioscorea should be growing or is this an old picture ?

Hi Tina, these were a mixture of good and bad plants, some are in some interesting states and some I’d like to hear people’s comments.

The dioscorea is a current picture, it had its leaves completely dry up about October-November so I think that is a bit late isn’t it? I’m not sure. It seems to have shrunk a bit and it’s a little bit soft, hope it’s not rotten. It was on a northish window and then a west facing windowsill since it last had leaves.

If anyone else is interested:

The first plant I don’t know the ID.

The seeds are haworthia from my own plants, they are all mixed up so looking forward to see what I get. Sowing them in the small pieces of akadama seems to work well.

The Compton Carousel I want to make bigger but don’t know how.

That Lapidaria doesn’t want to fill up when my others did.

Not sure what the 2 Eriosyce? cacti are.

The next is a haworthia/haworthiopsis? Nigra that I cored and it sent up two new shoots. Took ages though.

The pachyveria Orpet sending out new shoots after deheading.

The tiny one in the 1 inch black pot is a Sinnocrassula Yunnanensis from a leaf prop.

The dinteranthus I guess I don’t water when they are splitting?

The sulcorebutia I removed the organic soil and put it in just akadama after Paul D’s advice that they prefer an inorganic mix, seems to be coming back from the brink, hopefully. I’ll switch it to pumice and lava rock when my stuff gets delivered.

The Pachyphytum with two stems, is stretching but the bottom leaves are wrinkled. Not sure if I should water or not? and someone said I should cut back on the fertiliser.

The kalanchoe ‘Teddy Bear’ just looks funny and has a cute leaf prop. I’d like to get the leaves on the mother plant to grow bigger though. It has really shrunk under the lights.

The last pic of the plant in flower I thought someone might be able to ID it, it was sold as Oviferum but it looks different to me, the leaves are really wide and flat on that one compared to the other Pachyphytum.

Hi Paul,
I have to say a few of mine are looking a bit stretched and worse for wear too at this time of year.

I wonder whether you might get a similar issue with succulent plants as you can with corals under LEDs? With SPS hard corals grown under LEDs, even though the light level is often much more than high enough, SPS corals stretch up as the light is very point sourced and the corals respond. Soft corals and more fleshy hard corals don't react like this.

Succulents aren't as soft and flexible as other plants so I wonder if there is an element of this with your plants that might explain some of the elongation even though your light levels are more than adequate?

Interesting Ed, If corals can do it I don’t see why other plants (or weird sea animals) couldn’t do the same. I have no idea though. With my new lights I did think it would be better to have a more spread out source of light.

I’ll attach some pics of the Ikea Cultivation lights that I used at first. They were all in one line but are brighter than my new ones which I have in sets of 3 (except I have just 2 above the haworthia so it’s a bit less bright)

Some other people on Reddit use a batten type (v-tac I think) that has more diffused light with good results.

www.reddit.com/u/EanaDeva
www.reddit.com/u/OtherwiseBlueberry7
www.reddit.com/u/quanticflare

I think MatDz might use those too

Mine are the ones with the diffuser too but I use then to supplement sunlight rather than just on their own so can't say if it makes a difference.

It was just a thought, might be barking up a pointless tree!

Have you got space for some of these to have some time outside over the summer and see how they respond to fresh air, sunlight and rain? Might be quite interesting to see how some of the strugglers do under more natural conditions?