Tammy visits a couple who have turned their home into a hydroponic house for aroids. Subscribe 🔔 ab.co/GA-subscribe
We often think that gardening needs to involve good soil, compost, and lots of sunlight but there are less traditional methods growing in popularity.
Alicia Qian and Nigel Rannard met through their love of plants and have since created a home and business centred on growing wild and wonderful tropical plants powered by hydroponic systems. Alicia’s background in science and research combined with Nigel’s engineering experience allowed them to turn their large collection and hobby into a full-time job.
Hydroponic systems:
The system starts with a reservoir of water that is pumped up into a tray that the plants are sitting in. The system is set up on a timer so that the water is pumped up 5 times a day and stays in the tray for 5 minutes before completely draining away back into the reservoir. This is to ensure the plants are never getting soggy. Nutrients and a pH adjusting chemical are added every month to the reservoir as well.
The plants grow in clay balls, or ‘leca’ that are great for drainage. “They hold moisture inside them, but they allow any moisture that’s held between the balls to just release and allow air into the root zone.”
Lighting:
Plants inside the house are growing with natural light and flood lights. In the grow tents, they have set up specialised grow lights - “a full spectrum light including ultra-violet and infrared wavelengths. It brings out more colour, it brings out better health in the plant.”
Hybridising:
Whilst Nigel is tinkering with the systems, Alicia is painting with pollen to create new hybrid anthuriums. “Hydroponics provide the optimum conditions for plants to go through more life cycles more quicky. They reach maturity faster, the flower more and therefore [we] have more opportunities to create more hybrids.”
A hybrid is created when two genetically different parents are bred together. The aim is to create a bigger gene pool along with plants that have new, unique traits such as size, shape, colours, and textures. Whilst she sometimes knows what species will or won’t cross well together, Alicia says “it’s really still trial and error though which is part of the fun and experimentation.”
The hybridisation process starts with an inflorescence - for anthuriums this looks like a long spike which is covered in many tiny flowers. The flowers start off as female and produce a sticky wet substance that indicates it is receptive to pollen. After a few days the flowers go through the male phase and produce pollen. “By having the phases separately, the flower usually cannot pollinate itself.”
Alicia collects pollen as it appears, bags and labels it and stores it in a freezer until a suitable mate is in the receptive female phase. Then she simply dabs it on with a paintbrush! If fertilisation has been successful, red berries containing seeds will form and then the cycle starts again.
Some of the outcomes include beautiful anthuriums with large textured leaves or some have shiny crystalline patterns. Once shared and sold online they get lots of feedback and progress photos that help to understand how the new plants develop over time and which hybrid crosses have been most successful.
Featured Plants:
PHILODENDRON ‘GLORIOUS’ - Philodendron gloriosum x melanochrysum
MANJULA POTHOS - Epipremnum aureum ‘Manjula’
HYBRID CRYSTAL ANTHURIUM - Anthurium crystallinum cv.
- Anthurium forgetii ‘Dark Bullet’
- Anthurium forgetii ‘Hungry Uncle’
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