First plant kit
Pot, substrate, feed and pipette: open the box and repot.
People who buy their first rare plant usually put it in whatever supermarket compost is in the house, and lose it to rot within three months. It is not carelessness: it is that the right substrate, the right feed and the right pot are three separate purchases nobody knows they have to make until it is too late.
Here are all three, sized for each other. The clear 14 cm pot takes a plant that has just arrived or a rooted cutting; the aroid mix is free-draining and ready to use, with nothing to blend; the Elixir is the only feed needed all year, and the pipette is what stops you measuring it by eye — which is the most common way of burning the roots of a plant that was doing fine.
What's in it
- Anti-spiralling aroid pot — Ø 14 × 16 cm · 1.25 L
- Premium aroid mix 8.5 L — Essential · 8.5 L
- HESI HousePlant Elixir — 500 ml
- Graduated pipette — 2 ml
How it goes together
- Nothing gets mixed: the aroid mix is ready to use, and adding supermarket potting soil is how you cancel it out.
- A finger of mix at the bottom, the plant in the middle, fill at the sides without compacting.
- Water thoroughly the first time, until it runs from the drainage holes.
- From the second watering on, the Elixir with the pipette: 2 ml per litre in the slow months, 3–5 when the plant is pushing. The pipette is the only thing stopping you dosing by eye, which is the most common way of burning the roots of a plant that was doing fine.
- Then you wait: two centimetres dry before watering again. In a clear pot there is no guessing — condensation on the walls tells you when it is still too early.
What else you need
- A saucer, which is not included.
- The moss pole, for when the plant starts to climb. If you think you will fit one, choose the pot now: the anchor wants 4–8 cm more in diameter, and adding it later means repotting all over again. — D-shaped moss pole — crystal clear M · 40 cm €5.45