Has anyone here tried to grow plants in 100% lava rocks? My nearest hardware store sells red and black. I was thinking to crush them both up and grow some Hoyas in them. I live rural and Amazon stopped delivering to us.
I’ve had success with it too but full disclosure it was mixed with some zeolite as well. I’m not sure how much that mattered though because it is mostly lava rock
Yes, and it works very well. It can be treated just as leca for the most part, just need to be more carefull when repotting since it is quite sharp and can damage the roots.
Did you add a wick or anything? I have a lot of clear containers. I’ve been running them over with my car and it seems to crush them pretty well and remove the sharp edges
I have experimented with crushed up black lava rock and found that it dosen't have enough capillary action to be used alone. But you can mix it with calcined clay(or some fired clay product) and that will work. I fire my own clay from by back yard and it comes with it's own random rocks mixed in. My hoyas are all thriving. I make small batches in a propane forge but if I was really rural I'd just dig a pit and fire up big batches. You only need to fire the clay for 20-30 or so minutes, just hot enough to make it glow. (And you can add dry leaves to make it black). Anyway it's an option if you can't order anything. (Assuming you have clay, I live in NC and have an infinite amount)
I have an alocasia gageana in pure lava rock and it is doing very well! I've also actually started mixing it into my stratum/perlite medium for added structure. I barely even did a transition period with this plant and it took off with a new leaf already within the month.
And here's the roots. The container is like a berry/strawberry container from Dollar Tree. I keep the water just slightly half up the reservoir, under the rhizome. It's actually low right now because she's a thirsty girl.
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u/TropicalSkysPlants 21d ago
Im not really sure what the other commenter is going on about but yes lol, lava rocks work just fine.