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When I was researching about what kinds of potting media to use, I came across one that
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really shocked me, which was Styrofoam Peanuts. Now, I had never thought about using
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styrofoam peanuts and that really strike the curiosity. I mean, after all, can they be used in
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the potting media or can't they? Hi, I'm Amanda Matthews and thank you for watching this video at Arcadaria
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Now, why does styrofoam have such a controversial opinion about it? And I've been on the yes, let's use it, and no, let's not on both sides
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So if you go to my website and look at the article, you'll see the latest opinion of what I think of
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styrofoam there. But as of now, I'll tell you why I don't use it as a potting media
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Now, potting media has to serve at least six or seven different functions inside a potting media
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pot and some of those are good drainage, some of those are stability for the pot for the roots
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some of those are fixations, some of those are erration, some of those are erration, some of those
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are retention of water and nutrients. And we're going to go down the list in this video of how
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styrofoam fits into each one of those categories. Now when styrofoam peanuts were invented
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it's not even called styrofoam by the way. It's called expanded polystyrene
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It's called expanded polyphi-phi-stile. expanded polystyrene foam. And it was registered under styrofoam by Dow chemicals. And it was made to be
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lightweight as you use in a packing material to ship things across the country. When you put a whole
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bunch of styrofoam pieces inside a glass of water, they float. They do not stay at the bottom
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And because of this, you already learned that orchid roots have to have stability inside the pot
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So if you going to put something that floats and moves inside your pot that going to move the roots and the roots are going to get damaged So if you just pot with pouting with styrofoam that not a good media Another downside of
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having the styrofoam be so lightweight is that if you have a big orchid, it's not going to provide
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the stability inside that pot and their pot's going to topple over. So you need to add styrofoam with
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other kinds of materials such as river rock lava rock that will give that pot the stability to stay
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where it needs to stay so just by itself just because of that is not qualified to be a good potting media
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you might be thinking well if i break this styrofoam into a million little pieces and actually
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it won't be a million it will be larger pieces if you decide to go that way break it into larger
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pieces it's going to have quick water drainage well that can be true but if you have you have
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have the S shape styrofoam, that can be dangerous inside a pot because the water can accumulate
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on the underside of the S, on the curvatures, and it's going to stay there. And because it's not
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biodegradable, that water is going to eventually become stagnant until you water again. So the water
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retention we can think immediately, yes, it's good, but that all depends on the shape of your
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pot immediate, of your styrofoam. As for retention of nutrients, you already need. You already need
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know the answer to that, that this is not going to retain anything. You know, contrary to sphagnum
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we're going to soak up everything, even fertilizer and excess. Well, you're not going to have that
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problem here, obviously. So in the first three requisites as absorption of nutrients, drainage
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and fixation in the pot, styrofoam just totally misses the mark. The other thing that styrofoam
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is not good is that if you have a strong, healthy orchid with really vibrant roots
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like a cat layer it can penetrate this styrofoam and grow through it So when it comes time to repot this can be a pain to repot because all those roots are going to be attached and growing through the
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styrofoam instead of around it. Okay, enough of the bad stuff. Let's get on to what's good about styrofoam
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You know, you've got to focus on the positive too. So styrofoam, number one, will not absorb salt
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So if you have a potting media that you're combining and you have something
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that will be highly absorbent of nutrients. Styrofoam is a good mixture to add to it because that can actually give you a little
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equilibrium inside the pot. So you'll have a medium that will absorb
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And then you'll have styrofoam, which of course, don't do anything. So there is no salt buildup
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Another good thing about styrofoam, if you break this into sizes about that big
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and put it inside your pot, then you have little. lots of air inside that pot
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So, erration is going to be excellent. That is a great point for the styrofoam inside your pot
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Now remember, do not use the S shapes or the styrofoam that is
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in the more of the packing peanut type. Or if you have really, really small like circles or balls inside the potting media
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that can be kind of hard to get air to it. But if you have styrofoam peanuts, you know, and you break it down
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into hunks like this. I do not recommend any smaller, unless you have a really tiny orchid
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But this will provide air in between those spaces, and that's what your orchid needs
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Now, if you really, really want to go with styrofoam, take note. There are two kinds of
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styrofoam. The first is biodegradable, and that means it's made with cornstarch. So if you put
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water on this over and over and over again it going to degrade You don want that You want the kind of material that will not degrade inside your pot And this is easy to test All you have to do is put your styrofoam in water and see what happens to it
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If in 24 hours it starts to ripple on the sides, if it starts to crumble, if it starts to deform, like getting wrinkles on the top of it
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you have a styrofoam made of cornstarch. Don't use it. Another styrofoam to stay away from is any styrofoam that
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is not white. There are styrofoams with pink and green and any other color and I don't know why
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they do that but they do. But stay away from that because those chemicals will leach out of the
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styrofoam because remember your orc is going to get a lot of water and the third tip if you're
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really going to use styrofoam is to use it with rocks or pebbles, something that can provide
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a little weight inside your pot because I mean look how light these are
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that this is going to topple over and the worst thing in the world is having when you wake up
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and you see a beautiful spike on the floor broken and that's just because your pot fell over
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or the wind came in or your cat and so that just add pebbles to it to give it the strength
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that it needs to stand upright in that pot if this video did provide any quality information
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please give it a like or comment or interact. Send me an email or something
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So I know what videos to stay away from and what videos to do more of in the future
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If you do use styrofoam, please tell me in the comments how that works
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And if you're not really in the styrofoam, you can look at this video about orchid bark
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and how it interacts with your pot, what kind of orchid bark you should be looking for
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And this video down here that talks about potting media in general
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what you should be looking for in that potting media thank you and i'll see you in the comments below
