MY ULTIMATE MOSS POLE GUIDE - everything I have learned about Moss Poles over the last 3 years

just over three years ago I started growing plants on Moss poles I had a lot of failures but I also had a whole lot of success so in today's video I want to share all of my knowledge around most pulse with you so that you can incorporate them into your plan Journey as well hey everybody and welcome back to our YouTube channel my name is Jan also known as Sydney plant guy and down here we've got little bread my supervisor the majority of my planned Journey has been all about moss pulse it was a huge game changer for me and it really made this hobby into this passion that it is for me right now what I love about moss pulse the moist is that they enabled me to grow my plants to their full potential or really close to their full potential within an indoor setting but not everything was smooth sailing over the last three years A lot of it was trial and error and of course there were a lot of failures but also a lot of success I'm trying to be fairly structured with today's video and I'm Gonna Leave timestamps down below as well so you can skip to the part that is most relevant to you in today's video we're going to cover off why using a moss pole in the first place what plants you can use Moss pulse for whether you even need a moss pile to successfully grow your plants indoors different types of moss balls how how to make a moss ball yourself how to put a plant on a moss ball how to extend the Moss pole how to chop and extend the Moss pile how to water a moss pile most Alternatives and then any sort of other tips and tricks like none of this is news I've spoken about all of these topics in depth on my channel before and all of these topics or most of these topics have in-depth tutorials as well so I'll link all of them in the description but they're also in my most power playlist which I'll link at the end screen so if you want to dive into a little bit more detail on any of these topics feel free to check out my tutorials but let's get started and I've taken notes so please excuse me if I look at my phone every now and then I'm not reading messages I'm actually just trying to be as organized as possible with today's video but if you've seen any of my videos before I get really passionate about this topic so I wouldn't be surprised if I kind of go off topic every now and then alright quick disclaimer as well just wanted to let you know that this video videos all about my experience with my plants in my environment using the materials that I have available over here in Sydney Australia I'm not saying that this is the only way to have success ground climbing plants indoors there's many many ways to have success in this hobby but this is just what has worked for me and that's the only thing I can speak about so let's start off with why I like to use Moss pulse in the first place most of the plants that I like to grow are airoids specifically climbing airoids and in nature they're considered epiphytes or semi epiphytes which means that they like to climb up trees inside my apartment I don't have trees to provide these plants with so I need to give them some sort of different support that mimics the tree and those are Moss poles but most poles aren't just mimicking a support or not just mimicking the tree the Moss Paul is actually a vertical extension of the pot so Moss is a potting medium and if you treat it like any other potting medium then the plant can grow roots into the Moss basically giving the plant a huge area for root growth and ultimately the more Roots the more likely your plant will be healthy and the more Roots the more water and nutrient absorption meaning your plant is given the best chances of maturing and growing large ultimately that was my goal over the last three to three and a half years I wanted to take small cuttings or plants and grow them up most poles and see how large I can grow them within my indoor setting so providing the plant with that support as well as more room for roots just means that you're growing the plant as close as possible to its natural growth pattern and that will basically enable you to get the full potential out of the plant of course some other parameters need to be right as well but the closer you grow that plan to its natural conditions and its natural growth pattern that it likes the more likely the plant will Thrive for you when the climb up trees in nature they get access to more light and as they climb up and get access to more light they'll start maturing and growing larger leaves so that whole vertical growing is really signalizing to the plant that it's time to mature but I also mentioned that it's a vertical extension of the pot now the good thing is that it's a vertical extension which means that every single noid as it climbs up the Moss pole will start creating its own root system which means that every single noid has a really easy time absorbing water and nutrients is not that all the water and nutrients need to come from here and need to travel all the way up to the top Leaf every single night every single leaf will kind of have its own root system to support it which just means the plant has a much easier time and it's going to be super super handy when it later on comes to propagation every single night is basically air layered at all times if the plant starts attaching to your Moss pole which means then later on you can propagate or it's already propagated you just need to chop your plant so massive massive propagation benefits with moss pulse and lastly that propagation benefit is almost like an insurance as well I've had plans where the entire root system within the Pod suffered from root rot root rot is caused by bacteria and it can spread really really quickly so anything that's in that pot once that bacteria starts taking over everything will be lost but the plant survived I didn't even notice for the first three months that it had root rot because it had all of that root system within the Moss pot the root Rod won't spread from the pot all the way vertically up to the top node right but if you were purely relying on just the roots within the Pod then chances are that the entire root system of that plant would have been destroyed by root word within just a couple of days or weeks even so I really like that insurance aspect now of course it's never anybody's aim to like coarse root rot but we are dealing with nature it's normal things go wrong all the time even for me even after three years it's just normal it's not natural we're dealing with living organisms over here so things can always go wrong so to me it's not trying to prevent things from going wrong it's more about having a strategy to help the plant recover if something goes wrong all right based on my explanation why I like to use most Parts it's pretty clear to see what sort of plants we should be using most pulse for I use them for climbing aeroids so specifically philodendron monsteras some anthuriums syngoniums epipremnums so anything within the aeroid family and anything that's climbing not all airoids are climbing there can also be crawling or they can be a little more bushy and so on but you could try and force a plant to grow against its growth pattern so if the plant wants to crawl along the forest floor well why wouldn't you just try and make it crawl up a tree but the plant is usually smarter than that I've tried growing crawling plants on a moss pole and it just doesn't want to grow vertically it just wants to grow horizontally so I'll just grow them in rectangular pots rather than on Moss pulse it's the same principle just flip by 90 degrees I don't have a definitive list there is thousands of climbing plants out there that you could possibly grow on the Moss pole but if you're just having a look through my Channel or my Instagram my planned tours or my houseplant tours you'll you can find some inspiration you can find some plants that I grow on most poles and maybe you could try and find those in your country as well but ultimately there is no definitive list I look at the wider plant wants to grow in the first place or our research online how other people grow that plant and then I give it a go but I would not recommend foreseeing the plant to grow against its natural growth pattern to me that defeats the purpose the plant will always Thrive the most if we're trying to match nature not fight it now I don't think that all climbing plants really need a moss pole I usually use Moss balls for plants that I feel like might be having a hard time growing in my environment without one so the ones that are a little more finicky so if I example velvet philodendrons I just feel like the most poll is providing them with that extra root system it's going to provide them with a bit of a humidity boost by the water evaporating and it's going to help me with propagation later on as well a monstera deletes yourself for example that has really small internodal spacing it's very tolerant it's a very robust plant that plant grows everywhere outside over here in Sydney it grows up concrete walls and it's thriving that to me is a plan that yeah you could give it a moss pile but the work of having to make and maintain a moss pole might not necessarily be worth the effort whereas a philodendron were causing for example is very very tiny Roots very disappointing root system very fragile roots and is in general a very fragile tricky plant to grow indoors so with that plant I want to try and support it as much as I can so I'll definitely give it a moss ball about My Thai constellation for example I didn't give it a moss Ball but ultimately it's up to you and what you want to grow your plant into and if you think the most part is necessary which leads me to the next topic do you even need a moss pal not at all first and foremost for plan to thrive you need to provide the plan with the appropriate conditions I did a full video on the difference between conditions in care just recently and in that video I basically mentioned that the conditions are predetermined by the plant and the closer to the natural conditions we're growing the plant the more likely the plant will be thriving so conditions I think like light humidity temperature and airflow none of these is moss pal so if you're growing your plant in the perfect conditions that plant is going to thrive and grow large leaf regardless however when we're talking about growing indoors the conditions will always be sub-optimal just purely based on the ceiling that's above me I already know that these plants are not provided with the perfect light or like with s with as much light as they might want to yes a supplement with grow lights not everybody is willing to supplement their conditions but yeah first and foremost for plant to thrive you really got to sort out the conditions and once you've got the right conditions then you can just choose a care approach that suits the conditions suits the plant and suits your preferences to then hopefully crystallize that potential that you set with the conditions so for me that is most pulse I love my K approach using moss pulse I'm having a really easy time looking after them bordering them and so on so that is my preferred care approach but the all the best care in the world the best Moss poll in the world the best fertilizer and so on will not ever be able to compensate for insufficient conditions so no you don't need a moss pile but the Moss pole can definitely beneficial for your plant specifically if you are growing them in indoors now the other reason why I like to use Moss pulse is that propagation benefit that I spoke about earlier my main limitation indoors is light but also just ceiling height I cannot grow these plants indefinitely right like I keep all of my Moss balls at a maximum of 180 centimeters so that I can still fit them through the doorways now what that means in combination with the low light or the lower light than in nature is the plant grows a little leggier than it would in nature legia means it just has more internodal spacing at a potentially would have in nature because it's looking for light it's trying to climb up that tree to get excess to more light which means that on a 180 centimeter Moss pile it might only grow five six seven eight leaves or so until it reaches the top and then what I wanted to continuously grow so I can continuously mature but I'm running out of space so I cut it in half and then I continue with the top and extend that and so on so some of these plants that you see behind me the larger ones or I'll pop some photos up on screen they've been gone they've gone through three four five Moss poles to get to that maturity if I would have not been able to chop any of the Moss poles that Moss paw would now be like three four meters tall which is obviously unrealistic plus the bottom two meters would probably be empty by now leaves have a limited time span so for me it's not necessarily about the support that the most power provides I will well it is about the support that the most part provides but the support can be provided by other things as well it's mainly the support in combination with the with the propagation benefits because it's a it's a vertical extension of the pot that's really the magic that most poles offer me to grow my plants to maturity in an indoor setting I hope that made sense so no you don't need a moss pile you can use other support Stakes but if you want to give your plants the best chances of continuously maturing and continuously increasing a leaf size then I think it's going to be really really hard to beat a moss pole which is a good segue into different types of supports or different types of moss poles let's talk about different types of supports first a lot of the times I get asked questions about most poles but people are actually referring to these cocoa choir poles right the ones that just have like this like cocoa husk kind of wrapped around them now that Coco choir has really really poor border retention and nutrient retention which means it's not a growing medium if you would take a plant and you just put it in that mix probably won't really survive but you can grow plants in pure sphagnumos so these Coco choir poles are not a vertical extension of the pot they're just a support stake so yeah the plant can kind of use it to not fall down but you won't have the same propagation benefits same goes with the veggie trellis the veggie trellis is really just giving like your beans for example a support and I see some people grow aeroids on these sort of trellises as well and that is okay it will provide the plant with support and if you give the plant the right conditions your plant can still mature and grow larger but what what are you going to do when it gets to the top of the trellis you now need to chop and you basically have an unrooted plan so that will definitely set back your plan but we've got to talk about that in more detail about chopping extend process later on now you can also use wooden planks so like a piece of bark to grow your plant on and that's actually closest to nature but then again while it is close to Nature when it comes to the support it doesn't offer any of the propagation benefits if anything it's quite the opposite I've grown my monstera up a wooden plank before like a piece of bark actually a piece of iron bark that looked really really nice but it grew all of these roots into the bark and then it reached the top of the bark and then I try to remove it from the back and all of the roots literally ripped in half and the entire root system rotted away afterwards so I'm now stuck with my plant that has no roots so I basically need to start from scratch start propagating the plant and the growth will be reset defeats the purpose by the time it gets to the top of the Moss ball I wanted to continue mature I just started being happy I don't want to ruin all of my progress and start from scratch so yes you can use these as support Stacks but none of them will offer the same propagation benefits they're not a vertical extension of the pot they're not offering any additional room for the root system now when it comes to Moss pulse themselves I use a few different types of moss balls so I use these open Moss pulse and they're really just a piece of mesh filled with moss easy peasy and these I make myself I also use these Moss balls called grow vertical and they basically have a plastic backing I like this Eco Green one it's made from recycled plastic and it just has a mesh at the front and then just moss inside the same company has also released this the other day it's basically just one big sheet that you can fold together and just make this plastic pole over here and you can then fill it with moss it's also from grow vertical and I've got them Linked In the description and then I've also seen some self-watering Moss pulse where people put like a PVC pipe in the middle and fill it with water and then have like a week so that it kind of like self-watters itself which in my opinion seems to be way too much effort and it's really gonna become even more effort when we talk about the chop and extend process later on but they seem to be working at least in small sizes I've heard that if your Poles get too large eventually that self-watering doesn't really work that well anymore but ultimately keep in mind the principle we want to provide a vertical extension of the pot so anything that you build vertically that can hold growing medium in this instance the Moss we'll do the trick there is no right or wrong there is no Superior Moss pole it really depends on what plant you want to put on there what your conditions are what your likeliness or what your willingness to water is and so on so let's compare those two for example the two that I like to use the one that is open and the one that is plastic bagged with the plastic back ones the Moss makes has less surface area and makes less contact with the air so it's drying out slower whereas this one is fully open the Moss has a really large surface area and the Moss is going to dry out quicker so if you operate in a really really humid environment moment airflow is really important and plant and Roots love oxygen if you operate in a really humid environment the open air Moss pole might be better because the Moss and The Roots can actually breathe but because it's humid you don't need to worry about it drying out if you grow in a really really dry climate the Moss might dry out way too quickly if it's all exposed so there may be a plastic bag Moss pile would be a better option for you but in return you get less aeration for your roots and Roots love oxygen so you might be causing root rot or you might see fungus Nets and so on as a result of that as long as you stick to the principles there is no really right or wrong alrighty before we look into how I make one of these small spots I also wanted to show you this example over here this is another grow vertical and again I have them Linked In description I don't make them I just I just construct them and I fill them with moss but it's basically just a plastic sheet with wire now this is an El charcoal red and I hope the camera is going to focus on it but it's growing without a pot so when I say that the Moss pole is a vertical extension of the pot I mean it this plant is thriving and it doesn't even have a pot because it's just relying on the Moss as a growing medium within the pole to build a root system to support the plant and so whatever pot you've got down below is fairly irrelevant as long as you treat the Moss pole correctly and as long as you treat it as a as a growing medium man but we talk about the care at the end as well you're taking up a lot of space on this chair my baby alrighty now let's have a look at how I make these open Moss pulse over here let's make moss poles I use a coated wire mesh sphagnomos wire cutters and cable ties first I cut the wire mesh and I put the dimensions of it at the end screen for you to take a snapshot I then soaked the spec namos you don't want it to be wet just slightly moist a filter wire mesh with sphagnomos and you don't want it to be too dense but you also don't want it to be too light so I use around 100 grams of dried Moss for one Moss pile I leave the bottom of the Pearl empty because that part is going to be potted up in air ride mix later on I tie it all together using cable ties which are then cut off and lastly I give the Moss Paul a little haircut just trimming off any excess Moss that's sticking out and that's it I hope you enjoyed this alright beautiful so a couple of things they're all 90 centimeters tall and that's just because the wire mesh that I get from Bunnings is 90 centimeters tall that's it I didn't think it through all too much but the good thing is when I then extend the Moss pollen I put two on top of each other it becomes 180 centimeters which is just a perfect height to still fit three doorways and so on I decided to make them six centimeters in diameter because I feel like that is the perfect mix between it being too skinny or too big if it's too skinny it can't hold much Moss well Moss is the growing medium so you're not really providing a huge big vertical extension you're not providing the roots with much room to actually grow in if it's larger it means it holds a lot of moss which means when you water when you later on water your Moss it can become really heavy it can fall over the likeliness of it falling later on might be a bit higher because it can get really really heavy also the bigger the Moss pole the more Moss it will use and Moss can be fairly expensive depending on whereabouts you live so you're more resource efficient so I found the six centimeters just to be a perfect balance between those two the mesh doesn't need to be coated this one is a coated mesh but you just don't want the mesh to rust so I think if it's galvanized that should also do the trick but you want to make sure that the wire in itself is strong in enough to stand up got to spare Moss pot over here my Moss pulse can just stand by themselves I don't need to do anything to kind of support them it's because the mesh in itself is strong enough and the six centimeters also seems to be large enough surface area for this to stand on if it's really tiny it doesn't have a much surface area to stand on right so that has worked for me but of course there is no right or wrong approach as long as you keep these principles in mind the number one complaint I get about moss polls is the care energy that they dry out too quickly and it apparently takes a lot of time to order them sure you might have ordering approach later on and let me tell you it's a walk in the park but if your mossport drives are too quickly it's probably because you're not using enough moss moss is the growing medium the more Moss you've got in your Moss pole the longer it will retain moisture so if you just flake a little bit of moss in your Moss pal of course it's gonna dry out really really quickly so I use about 90 grams of dried Moss per Moss pulse or a pack of 500 grams that I can buy at Bunnings makes six Moss poles for me and again I found that to be the perfect medium if if you pack it too densely then it's not aerated and you know Roots might actually have a hard time even penetrating it in the first place so I found that to be a good in between you know that if you avoid about your muscle drying out too quickly because you put them in a really dry environment just try a plastic back one another reason why I don't like the self-watering Moss pulse because if you put a PVC pipe in the middle of the Moss pole then you're taken away a lot of space for the actual Moss so you just then have a really thin layer of moss around your PVC pipe which means that well you don't have much Moss to absorb the water in the first place so you don't have much growing medium so where the roots gonna go right like what are the roots going to attach to the PVC pipe and you're going to have the same issues before the PVC pipe is not a growing medium so anyway I think you might know how I feel about surf ordering Moss pulse but it doesn't mean it can't be done I just personally never really felt the need to do it alrighty so now we've made a moss poll I always make them in bulk as well whenever I make most poles I make them in batches of six there's no point in making all of that mess just for one Moss pal so I'll make them in batches of six and then I put them in the Sun so that the sun can also kill any sort of um mold spores and so on at least in theory and so far that worked really well for me I haven't had any mold issues with my Moss piles but I also ensure that there's always airflow if your Moss pole starts showing signs of mold it's probably because there is a lack of airflow in the first place but that trick of keeping them in the Sun for you know a couple of days until they're dry has worked for me really well and then once they're dry I can also store them anywhere I want and then I just always have one handy in case I need it for extensions or for a new moss pile and I don't need to procrastinate because I don't have one handy alrighty now you've got that planned and it's ready to put the plant on the Moss pole let's have a quick look at this video let's put this plant on a moss pole this plant has a decent root system so it's ready to be potted up and given the Moss pole I usually wait for at least secondary Roots I also need a pot a pole and some air rod mix first I take the plant and I pin it to the part of the Moss pole that I wanted to attach to later on to pin it I just use this piece of wire that I shaped into a u and I just used a grit to pin the plant to the pole I then flip it upside down so that I can feel the bottom part of the pole that bottom part is going to be inside the pot so I don't want it to be filled with moss I want it to be filled with airoid mix I then carefully flip it back and top it up with more arrowed mix I can now remove the pin it's no longer needed the plant will attach itself using aerial roots and for more stability and I'll put the pot into a heavy decorative planter and that's it alright first things first when we're potting up our plant on a moss pole all the norm all the normal rules of repotting apply we are still potting up just a normal plant in a pod all we're doing is we're adding a support stick to it as well that's it we're not actually it's not a whole new ball game it's the same thing we're just adding this steak in it at the same time please please please make sure you start the Moss poll at the very bottom of your pot like you want it to be all the way down there you don't just want to put it in in hindsight of course it's going to be super wobbly you need that Moss pole all the way to the bottom of the pot and then fill it in with air ride mix and that is what's keeping the Moss poll in place for me I do not connect my Moss pulse to the pot they're just held in by initially the air white mix and then eventually once the root system expands they're all held in by the roots I don't need to Cable tie anything over here I've seen people like even super glue or cable type on the bottom which is something you can totally do but I've really never had the need to do it and I think it's mainly because my air ride mix that I use is really really chunky so please do that first and the reason I don't like to have Moss Air at the bottom of the Moss ball is because that Moss would then just be covered by air ride mix and the Moss has too much water of attention I rather have everything inside the pot be air ride mix so that's why I always keep the bottom of the most empty this is probably a little bit too full I made this one for an extension I would probably stop over here and have this part filled with air ride mix instead of moss now I like to start my Moss pulse with plants that are really really small and let me show you this example of my monstera adensonia for example like I got it as one one like cutting and I cut it in four single noise I propagated these four single noids and then I popped them in a pot and I just put a moss pole in the middle of the pot and then eventually these plants want to find something to climb on so they find the most pole and they'll start climbing up that Moss pole and now three and a half years later this is what my adensonia looks like now so because I gave that plant a moss ball when it was still really small every single noid as the plant was growing up that Moss pole was able to take full advantage of the Moss Polk Royal root system into the Moss pile and enabling the plant to grow larger and larger if you have a really long established Vine already and you just put it on the Moss pole in hindsight chances are that only the top note will start attaching to your Moss pile plants work with growth hormones the plant is going to send growth hormones into the part that's currently growing which is usually the top of the plant so where the growth hormones are this is where the new Roots will grow specifically in an indoor environment you probably have sub-optimal humidity so the roots will have a really the older noise will have a really really hard time growing Roots if you're growing in perfect conditions you have like a greenhouse or hot house or something like that yeah the older noids can grow your roots into the Moss pole at any time but it is unlikely plus even if they grow them in hindsight the leaves won't miraculously increase in leaf size in hindsight right plus you're already at the top of your Moss pole you soon to like extend it or chop it and you haven't the plant hasn't even really used the Moss pal in the way that it's intended to be used if that makes sense so I always like to start them small the other benefit is like getting smaller plants is just more cost effective and to me that's that's the part of the hobby that is the most fun like getting a small plant growing it up and most important seeing how large I can grow it that was me not I bought this right like seems to be a little uh unrewarding to just buy an established plan and put it on a moss pollen hindsight also if you already have a really mature established plant why bother giving it a moss poll it clearly didn't need the Moss pal to grow large in the first place the whole idea behind these Moss balls is that I'm enabling my plant to grow larger all right and eventually the plant is going to reach the top of the Moss pole but we want to continuously see it mature so we want to extend the pulse so the plant has more room to grow I want to extend it with another 90 centimeter pole but first I'll give it a larger pod just so it has a bit of a wider base to stand on and it won't fall over I'll give it a 20 centimeter pot foreign so you can see this some roots in here I don't really do anything with this I'll just pop it straight to the bottom of this pot always make sure you put it all the way to the bottom of the pot otherwise it won't really be stable that means that some of these sleeves will now actually be covered by potting mix but that's okay I want to focus on the top of the leaves not the base beautiful so now that I've potted it up it got a larger base to stand on I'll use a garden stake I'll pop it in the back with some cable ties I'll now connect the pole to the garden stake and that steak I mean it might give the pole a little bit more stability but mainly that steak helps me extend the pole and connect the two poles to each other now take my spare pole I'll extend it with another 90 centimeter pole I always make all my poles 90 centimeters that way it's just easy and consistent I always make them the same diameter as well so I know that all of my poles will fit each other so they're always six centimeters in diameter connect them using some cable ties and connecting the joints over here so I'll do that quickly perfect I'll cut off all the cable ties and I also take the cable ties and the twist them inwards so there's no sharp edges for any of the leaves or any of the neighboring plant sleeves to kind of get hurt alrighty that's it and again over here I just use 90 centimeter Moss poles and I make all of the poles the same diameter so I can just always easily extend all of them but ultimately it's up to you you can do the same process with like 30 centimeter Moss pots and so on but just keep in mind every time you extend the Moss pile there's like a you know where the two most pulse meet it's potentially a weak spot so if your Moss pole is made out of like 10 different segments it is going to be structurally less sound than if it's just made out of two and some people overlap the most pulse by a little bit some people use the garden stack in the back some people don't some people put the garden stake in the middle again there's no right or wrong just as long as you stick to the principle but obviously not a forever solution eventually the plant is also going to reach the top of its extension and there by then we're already at a pretty decent height and we can't really extend our muscle further otherwise well we'll be hitting the ceiling so what I then do is something called Chop and extend and it is exactly what it sounds like I chopped the plant and then I re-extend it so let's have a look alrighty let's have a look at the chopping extend process first of all I separate the two poles that are previously extended so I cut all of the cable ties and then I'm gonna keep working with the top now for this to work it is essential that there's Roots within the top half of the Moss pot and you can see those chunky roots that my monstera dubia has grown over here I've removed as much Moss as I can and I replace it with air white mix before I then flip it inside a new pot that I then top up with more airoid mix and from here on it's just a normal extend process I add a garden stake in the back for stability and then I add another 90 centimeter pole on top of it and it's all secured using cable ties now you might experience some setback when it comes to Leaf size due to the plant now focusing on re-establishing a root system but given that it already had a decent amount of roots within the Moss pile that should be overcome pretty quickly and you're basically reducing as much stress as possible right let's break down this concept a little more now first and foremost this entire chopping extend process is only going to work if the plant has thoroughly rooted into the Moss pole it 100 relies on the roots within the Moss pole because after I chopped that plant I continue using the top half and the top half is not connected to the pot anymore right the entire root system of that top half is within the Moss pile that's also another reason why I like to use 90 centimeter Moss poles if you would make smaller segments let's say for example I would only choose the top 30 centimeters I take that cutting and I chop it back up well the top few notes had had have had the least time to root into the Moss pole so they have the least root system so far whereas if I take a full 90 centimeter Moss pile I probably have five six seven eight nodes on that Moss pole and the oldest Knights have had plenty of time to grow a decent root system so I then have a root system that's in proportion to the size of the cutting and that is super important if your root system is not in proportion to the size of the cutting then your plant is not going to have enough roots to sustain or to support that cutting and it's going to drop some of the leaves and the new growth is going to revert with the way that I do my chopping extend and I've done it I reckon 15 to 20 times now over the last few years my plants hardly revert after the chop because they have a decent root system within the Moss pile they've got decent leaves to still photosynthesize and so on so the plant hardly skips a beat obviously if you provide it with sufficient conditions you can't do a chopping extend and take it and put it in a dark corner and expect it to grow your conditions always set the growth potential now of course I use the top half because the top half is the one with the fresh leaves the new leaves the beautiful looking ones the more mature ones the bottom half well these sleeves are slowly going to deteriorate right leaves only have a limited time span so I don't want to use the bottom half yeah the bottom half has the larger root system but ultimately I'm after an aesthetically pleasing display so I want to use the top half so I have to rely on the roots within the Moss pile another reason why I like to start my Moss poles small and like have the plant grow up the entire Moss paw then will ensure that every night has attached to the pole giving the plant the best chances of not just surviving The Chopping extent by surviving your chopping extent without any sort of stress or with the least stress possible now what about the bottom half I get asked that a lot I personally usually give it to friends or I sell them or bring them down to AJ and she might put them on sale I just don't have enough room but now that I have a garden I actually started putting plants into the garden but that bottom part is still going to regrow it right so wherever you chop the toilet up annoyed on that bottom half of the pole is going to grow and you shoot and in my experience most likely it's gonna even go two or three shoots because it has a huge root system but nowhere to put all of that energy so the bottom half is also going to grow so you could put another Moss ball in the bottom half and it's going to regrow again I do that sometimes I don't know if you can still see this in frame but there is a my philodendron gigas over here or gigas I basically instead of just taking the top and extending it I took the top I put it next to the bottom and then I put another pole on top so now both of these plants can grow new shoots onto the new extension and then I have two plants instead of just one on it and I've done that before my my El Salvador and so on like it definitely works so that bottom half is not gone it's not going to waste it's still a perfectly fine plant you're basically just propagating but your propagation has almost like a hundred percent success because usually what goes wrong with propagation is the rooting part right like you cut you take a cutting if the cutting Roots it will definitely grow leaves eventually but it's going to die if it doesn't root in time right so the rooting part the the risky part of propagation has already been done so propagation is basically a hundred percent success if you use Moss pulse on that night I want to show you another thing it's not really a chopping extend process but it's similar to that and I hope this is going to be visible but I took this philodendron vernary I grew it upper Moss pile and you can see all of these beautiful Roots over here that I was talking about you can see that every night has its own root system over here now and then I just chopped in between the noise and now every single cutting on here I've got like four or five links every single cutting has grown and you shoot themselves so there's one here there's one here there's one at the top over there and I think there's one hidden down there somewhere uh oh actually sorry I only cut it in three parts so I basically propagated this plant and made it really Lush without even taking it off the Moss pole that's when I mean when I talk about propagation benefits alrighty and from here on it's just repeat and again and again and again I've had plants that needed a chop and extend almost every six months specifically at the beginning when the plant is still a bit younger it seems to be growing with smaller with larger internodal spacing which means it climbs up these Moss poles pretty quickly and then obviously depends on the season as well so it's eventually just a copy and paste rinse and repeat process and that's also why I get away with quite small pods because the top cutting doesn't have a ginormous root system so my plants aren't really root bound if that makes sense right and I don't really need pots bigger than the 20 centimeters because I get to because the Moss pole is the vertical extension obviously once the plant has become that large and it grows larger leaves eventually it becomes more and more top heavy so it's definitely challenging to not make these plants fall all the time but what I found works really well for me is just putting the plants in a heavy decorative planter and that heavy decorative planter is just giving them enough stability to not fall and mix the whole structure a rather bottom heavy instead but I've seen online as well some people like hook their poles into like their curtain rail at the top or something like that to stop it from falling obviously if you hang your pulse then they can't fall so that's the approach that I'm taking in my Greenhouse for example I just want to hang everything because then you can't tip over around well I can still fall but I would fall from the hook rather than just tipping over if that makes sense alrighty so when it comes to care first and foremost let's talk about watering I get that question a lot like how do you keep your Moss pulse moist do you need to keep your Moss pulse moist how do you stop the pot from being overwatered while the Moss pulse stays moist all of that kind of comes back to two things first of all the Moss pole is a vertical extension of your pot so it treated the same way that you would treat your potting medium you wouldn't not water your potting medium and expect your plant to grow in it right of course you're gonna water your pot so of course you need to border your Moss pal if you want it to be a true extension of the pot if you just wanted to be a support stag then no you don't have to order it but keep in mind you're not going to have any of the propagation benefits that I spoke about in length in this video already so I like to keep my Moss balls moist at all times so I'll Water them and I'll also provide them with nutrients because well I treat it exactly like the pot it's a vertical extension of the pot I fertilize my pots so why wouldn't I fertilize the Moss pile first of all let's find out how I water my most pulse let's water most poles first you need a water bottle with some holes in the lid and you need to make a little cavity at the top of your Moss pole that fits the neck of your bottle perfectly so I just flip it upside down and from here on I'll let gravity do the rest for me the Moss makes contact with the water through those little holes which breaks the surface tension but at the same time it is controlling how fast the water is being released you want the release of water to be slower than the absorption of Water by the Moss and 30 minutes later you want to check the planter to make sure there's no excess water accumulating that's it honestly that's as easy as it is so I don't understand when people say about how what do you feel about self-watering most poles like how much more self-watering than just flipping a bottle upside down do you want it to be even if you have a self-watering Moss pile surfboarding Moss pot is not going to take itself to the tap and top up its water level you still need to top up the water in the PVC pipe so I don't understand how that could possibly be less work than just flipping a bottle upside down plus when I flip the bottle upside down at least I have sufficient moss in here to absorb the water if you have the PVC pipe take up 50 of your Moss pole then what exactly is going to absorb all of the water let's stop talking about self-watering must pause so let's see how I assess the the watering needs for my Moss pile part two of watering most poles why and when well first why it's to encourage root growth the Moss pole is like a growing medium it's a vertical extension of your pot when is a little trickier the frequency changes but one stays the same keep the most pole moist and I use a crunch test to test it if you squeeze the Moss pollen makes noise sound it's still moist if you squeeze the Moss pole and it's crunchy then it's time to flip a bottle upside down and water that Moss Pole but what if the bottom of the pole is still moist but the top of the pole is crunchy well you can take your bottle and just fill it with half as much water flip it upside down and there won't be enough water to drain all the way through and my top tips to avoid over watering is number one a chunky air white mix and number two less water but more frequent watering whoop whoop DJ Moss pile perfect and that crunch test has worked super super well for me and I think that last sentence where I said that you know if you are worried about over watering water more frequently but use less volume of water with every watering so the whole idea the whole problem that people are afraid of and to be honest I've only really had that happen to me once is that the Moss obviously has a larger surface area so the water is going to evaporate from the Moss much quicker plus gravity is obviously going to make the water drain down so how do you prevent the pot from accumulating a whole lot of water while the Moss pole isn't boiling dry first of all I use a really chunky air rod mix and if there's any excess water in my pot I empty it out so that way the plant is never sitting in water but over the last three years I've gotten so good at knowing how much water approximately my plants need that I actually face the opposite problem I seem to only water the Moss pile and I don't water with enough water to actually water the pot as well I don't I hardly ever actively water the pot I really just water the Moss pole and then the water dripping from the pole into the pot Waters the potting mix right now I've done the opposite way I've gotten so good at it that my potting mix like is too dry I forgot to order it so what I do is I rather water a little less at the beginning and then I'll wait maybe 30 to 45 minutes and then I do the crunch test at the bottom of the pole and if the bottom of the pole is still dry and crunchy then I water a little bit more the Moss had more capacity to absorb water than uh I provided water if that makes sense I don't know it doesn't make sense it makes total sense for me the other thing is I do border the full Moss pole pretty much all the time even though the plant is only up to here right now for example technically I don't need to water the rest of the moss part you water the roots not the Pole right so wherever the roots of the plant are or wherever you want the roots to be that's the part that you should water Roots seed moisture so if you don't keep the pole moist the plant is less likely to actually grow roots into it but the reason why I grow the water the whole thing is two things gravity so if I just water here the top of the Moss pot is always going to dry out first because the water is going to drip down so if I just water to here the top of the Moss pole is now here which means the part that the plant has attached to is about to dry out at all times making me really busy if I water the full thing the most part is going to slowly dry out from the top to the bottom over the course of a week or so so by the time it gets to the end of the week and it's time for me to water again the bottom of the Moss pole is still moist I hope that makes sense and at the same time the water in the Moss pot is just giving my environment a humidity boost so I don't use humidifiers because I've just got enough plants and enough Moss pulse to naturally give me good humidity inside my apartment but you don't have to I also wouldn't really bother misting your Moss pulse you're really just misting the surface it's gonna evaporate within two minutes you just potentially gonna cause some fungal issues so I water the Moss thoroughly also I avoid I try and not have my Moss pots dry out fully dry moss is hydrophobic once the Moss is dry it's going to be really hard to re-wet the Moss without making a mess it's just going to Purl off because it's hydrophobic it doesn't want to absorb the water so in that instance you need to really slowly mist or water the Moss and only once the Moss has absorbed a little bit of water then it's going to unlock its full water retention capacity so if that happens I usually take them outside I spray them anyway you know I spray the leaves clean them and then once the Moss is no longer hydrophobic then I can just pour water down the pole in it I think it drinks it thoroughly but if you're just constantly wetting the surface area you basically it's it's never gonna it's it's you gonna just create so much work for yourself just flip that bottle upside down and water it from the inside out and if you're worried about overboarding your pot while keeping your pole moist then just put half a bottle on there first so like fill the bottle half and put it on there first and see how far down it goes let me insert this clip over here you can see when I flip that bottle upside down you can see how the water is slowly being absorbed by the Moss if that stops halfway through the Moss pole then you know you need twice as much water to water the full Moss pile if the full Moss pole is soaked and there's excess water dripping into the pot then empty it out but for next time you know that you actually use too much water so next time just use less volume but maybe stick to the same frequency and so on right ultimately it's something that I've learned over the last three years there wasn't like one moment where I was really and in the next moment I got really good at it I just pay attention to my plants I look at them on a daily basis every morning I walk around with my morning coffee squeeze my Moss pulse left right and Center and see what needs watering I don't have a schedule frequency of watering I don't go around every Saturday and water all of them if one of them needs watering on a Tuesday night then it's going to get a bottle upside down on a Tuesday night all right you can tell I'm really passionate about the watering topic because I just feel like this is the one thing that makes so many people shy away from most poles but in my opinion it's a non-issue I mean yeah I do need to be constantly on top of a constantly needed to flip bottles upside down on my Moss balls but that's the part of the hobby that I also enjoy I enjoy caring for my plants I don't just want to sit there on the couch be lazy do nothing but expect amazing results I see every warding as an opportunity to provide my plants with what it needs to thrive now that was just a watering apart from that all other care factors apply right so you still need to fertilize your plant and I fertilize the you fertilize the root system right so if the root system is within the Moss pile you also fertilize the Moss ball pest treatment I personally haven't noticed any pests within the moss in itself the Moss is not alive it was dried sphagnom Moss if anything I see pests on my leaves but that's not unique to plants on Moss pulse that applies to all of my plants I do think however with most Parts you just need to be a little bit more conscious with airflow because you are introducing a whole lot more moisture and where there's moisture there's always some sort of fungal issues or mold issues I personally haven't had that issue I don't know if it's because I always put them in the sun first or because I have decent airflow but if you put this in a cold damp Corner no airflow translated your Moss ball is going to show mold eventually are fairly high but that is not necessarily the most pulse fault unless of course you used most that was maybe really poor quality in the first place and maybe had a lot of spores in them already but I do think sunlight the UV in the sunlight would kill more spores so you could just drive in the Sun and I think that would eliminate the problem yeah sorry when we're talking about watering I forgot to mention something that I get asked a lot so people seem to be struggling with the water upside down thing let me show you that so I've got this bottle hang on I can't apply any pressure so I have this bottle I have three holes in it and if I hold it upside down and I apply no pressure to the bottle it kind of seals itself like the water tension seals itself it's really hard to not squeeze the bottle and hold on to it sorry the water tension is just going to stop it from actually dropping now oh my God I feel like it's going to get messy I can break that tension by touching it I think I survived this mess free so really all I need to do when I top pop it on top of the Moss pal is I need to make sure that the Moss still slightly touches it you don't want it to just hover there mid-air because then Bradley don't drink it actually you can drink it it's just water um you want the Moss to slightly touch that bottle so it breaks that surface tension but you don't want to touch it too much so that it blocks the holes if that makes sense sometimes I pop the bottle up on there and it takes five minutes for the whole bottle to drain sometimes I pop it on there and it takes three hours for the whole bottle to drain just depending on how exactly I pop the bottle on there it doesn't matter as long as the water is released slower than the Moss can absorb it it's going to be a mess free way of watering which is really really important for me because I have all of my plants indoors if it's mess free if I just pop it on there and it's mess free there's no water dripping down whatsoever it's the perfect way to water in an indoor setting compared to walking around with a pressure sprayer and literally spraying your whole apartment including all of the balls like that's not very messy and also not very safe and like probably not recommended for mold prevention and so on honestly sometimes I have four little holes in that lead sometimes I have three big holes in that lid like it just depends on what drill bit was attached to my uh my drill by the time I need to make a new bottle right like I don't it's there's no crazy science behind it I've seen people use glass bottles I've seen people use these squeezy bottles like the Powerade bottles I've seen people use these um like like a funnel or I've seen people use uh just take a bottle chop it in half put it on top and just like permanently have it up there I mean I I don't think that's necessarily aesthetically super pleasing to have like half chopped bottles on every single Moss ball at all times seeing people use these weird you know how you can um there are these little they're supposed to like water like muscle like like ferns for example there's like these little spikes that you can put in the ground then you put your bottle upside down on it and then it slowly releases water over like you know whatever two weeks or something like that so these things that you buy for like plants that you don't want to water all uh too often or when you go on holidays or like these uh bulbs like made from glass you can buy in Amazon so on I've seen so many creative ways of people watering their Moss pulse they're all work just keep the principle in mind water your Moss slower than the Moss can absorb the water and it's going to be mess free that's it there's no right or wrong approach that waddle upside down technique is just a really inexpensive really convenient way and it works nicely for me sorry yeah anyway so I sure really mentioned it earlier but I forgot let's talk about most Alternatives because I do know that not everybody can get their hands on Moss necessarily depending on which country you live in I predominantly use moss and that's just because we have access to sustainably harvested New Zealand sphagnum Moss that is premium quality over here in Australia right it's commonly available you can just go to Bunnings and get a bag so that's good for me but I know that not everybody's in a position to get their hands on some sustainably harvested sphagnum Moss depending or maybe not at an affordable price at least so there are a few things you can do you can use cocoa chips instead like this plant over here for example so I just use cocoa chunks in here and they have decent water retention you can use any medium in there as long as the medium can retain water so that you can border it and Roots can grow into it so I use cocoa chips I personally found it to be super messy when you order it it just kind of drips everywhere rather than it's just being neatly absorbed like with moss I use tree fan fiber this pole over here is filled with treatment fiber and perlite great water retention much easier to water as well but it's messy it's a really fine product that just kind of flakes out of the Moss Pole every now and then so great for outdoors really messy indoors I wouldn't necessarily do that I've done a moss pile with aeroid mix that's no longer with me I took it down to AJ so I just didn't have enough room but that also worked if it's a medium that you can water and that it's gonna absorb water and nutrients then that's it it's just a vertical extension of your pot it's like a pot just tall instead of wide right so all of that can work but you need to keep that in mind like I would not grow a plant in pure cocoa chips for example in a pot because I believe that the cocoa chips actually absorb too much calcium or give up too much calcium one or the other I've experienced or like I've seen a lot of people growing them on Cocoa chips and the plants get really bleached really pale because they're nutrient deficient it's just not really like a nicely balanced medium but I'm not really good with ph previous in the pudding though I've seen it not work out for a lot of people so my preference is definitely Moss then afterwards I would say tree front fiber is great if you can use it in an environment where you can be messy like a greenhouse or outdoors and then afterwards I would use an air ride mix and at the very last I would probably use like a like cocoa chips but you can try other things as well right let's say as long as you stick to the principle and you provide the plant with a growing medium in a vertical extension you can follow all of my other guidelines or tips over here and the success should be comparable if the plant has been given the conditions that it likes in the first place now when I use anything but Moss I would definitely recommend using a plastic back Moss pile like these grow verticals just because it really reduces the surface area makes it dry out less quickly and it also reduces the Moss while a lot of people complain my more stress out and so on Moss actually has a really really good water retention capacity if you compare it to any of the other mediums that I use in my aeroid mix which then leads me to some other top tips right really for this to be successful I would recommend starting your journey slowly don't go and convert all of your plants to Moss poles on a day in in one day without you having made any learnings yet because if something goes wrong it's not going to go wrong with your entire collection I really really slowly started my Paul journey in my first few Moss polls didn't look that good either they were like really wonky and like all over the shop it really took me a good year or so until I found like a rhythm where I was like I think I know what I'm doing over here now I think I found the approach that works for me and from there it's just copy and paste and just fine-tuning but you might still need to go through that I'm trying to share as many of my learnings as possible with you but I will never be able to take that need to do your own learnings away from you if you growing in a really really dry environment Moss pulse might just not be worth the effort for me personally because Sydney is fairly humid the results that the most poles give me versus the effort it takes to maintain these Moss balls is definitely worth it if you feel like the results that the most posts can give you are not worth the constant effort of having to try and keep them moist then maybe growing with moss pulse is not the best way for you to do ultimately I AI for me it's really important that this hobby is fun for me and I don't want to force myself having to do something that I don't want to do just because I'm trying to like chase this certain look that I saw online right uh if my care approach would be too overwhelming for me and I don't want to do it anymore then that would kind of ruin this entire hobby for me lastly I don't force my plants up the Moss pole the plant is growing up the most pole naturally this is net that is its natural growth pattern and it will naturally grow up the Moss pal and The Roots will seek the Moss poly will automatically attach itself to it however every now and then I want to help out my plant a little bit not because my plant needs help growing or attaching to the Moss pile but rather because I wanted to grow in a straight line or like I wanted to grow somewhere specifics to create a nice visual display so what I do sometimes and again I hope this is showing what I do sometimes is I have these pieces of wire over here you see this it's basically a piece of wire that I put in a u-shape and then I tell the plant I want you to attach here or here or here here wherever I want the plant to attach to give me the look that I want so it's really just giving the plant some help aesthetically if your plan does not want to attach to the Moss Ball by itself then you're might not keeping your Moss ball moist or the conditions that the plant is growing in aren't really suitable for the plant or the plant is just not happy if the plant is Happy Roots will grow and they will find their way into the Moss pole if you keep the most polymized alrighty that is it for the video I hope you enjoyed it and I hope it makes you want to try out Moss pulse in your own plant Journey as well as I mentioned before I have more in-depth tutorials on all of these topics and I'll link them all in the description and you'll also see them in my Moss pop playlist which will be linked at the end screen including tutorials on how to make a chunky air ride mix for example thank you so much for watching like subscribe leave a nice comment share this video with anybody who could learn from my approach to plant care and I hope I'll see you next time bye thank you

Channel: Sydney Plant Guy

Views: 135,299

Keywords: houseplants, indoorplants, urbanjungle, mosspoles, gardening

Id: DzWgxQpKnaw

Length: 61min 57sec (3717 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 17 2023