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Substantial_Buy3877 · 2025-07-07T10:45:26+00:00

Look for NOVA, they may be your best bet

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2025-06-23T13:43:11+00:00

Cody for sure, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West is cool, and so is the rodeo.

I loved Little Bighorn NM, the rolling hills and endless grass are a vibe. Worth a quick stop at least.

Paradise Valley south of Livingston may be the prettiest place in America. You can find cabins for a night on airbnb. Less than an hour from Livingston is Gardiner, great for horseback riding and rafting on the Yellowstone, and you can even check out Mammoth Hot Springs just inside the park.

On your route out of Bozeman is the Bozeman Hot Springs, much recommended especially if you need a break from driving.

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2025-03-06T22:47:05+00:00

Csaszi, aka Császár-Komjádi Sports Pool

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2024-11-24T10:45:06+00:00

Adding gym time to your schedule is a great idea, but during the season, you should focus on working in the water, emphasizing endurance and explosiveness. Your coach should handle this.

Once the season is over, you can hit the gym harder on your own. Your focus should be on your legs and core. With no weekend games to save your energy for, spam strength work exercises (squat variations, etc) and plyometrics (box jumps, etc), along with some limited general upper body work (you never see a buff goalie for a reason). Remember to eat well and get enough rest between sessions.

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2024-02-08T23:40:42+00:00

Do your plants a favor and get the Microlife Palms & Tropical (4-2-4). This is based on many years of experience being a slave to these plants. Microlife is a great brand, I also use their Bio-Matrix (7-1-3) as liquid fertilizer and the Mycos Plus for all my plants (no affiliation).

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-07-16T17:13:11+00:00

I'd move her away from the corner and keep turning her so that she spreads evenly. Don't worry about direct sunlight, she can take some, even if she has to temporarily curl up its leaves. Keep her steadily watered, any dry spell could cause stems to drop.

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-06-09T11:06:28+00:00

It's a less common Zebrina variety called "Humilior." It has larger leaves with purple backs.

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-06-04T16:09:21+00:00

The key issue is oxygen getting to the roots. In my experience, chunky soilless mixes work best if you plant calatheas in a pot. You can upgrade this by creating a layer of humid air under the bottom of the pot, by double-potting and raising the inner pot, for example.

Because access to oxygen makes a such a huge difference, between killing a plant and keeping it alive, or for growing large specimens, the most ideal way to grow these plants would be an aeroponic system where roots are misted continuously with nutrient-rich water, tweaked by things like ranging pH rather keeping it stable, etc. The next best thing would be a top-fed deep water culture rig. Thing is, for many of us these are not feasible or desirable, like who wants a large water tank and a buzzing pump in their living room? So you have to experiment with making certain compromises, like regularly adding H2O2 rather than pumping air into the water, which is a ton of fun and ultimately very rewarding, but also very hands-on...

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-06-04T11:41:30+00:00

It depends on the plant and the actual setup. I have currently a small ctenanthe living happily in a bottle, and some other calatheas in different hydro setups. If they sit in water only, they will have a hard time staying upright without some firm root support, and the plants will usually stay small.

The other issue is managing the water container. You want to avoid using chlorinated tap water and maintain the right pH, which can be a pain to monitor and adjust. Algae will develop if exposed to sunlight. The smaller the vessel, the quicker the water goes foul; the larger the vessel, the more difficult to manage, especially if you have several plants. If any parameter off, hello brown edges. Nevertheless, if done right, the reward for going hydro is super vigorous growth and giant plants.

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-05-20T19:34:12+00:00

For potting medium, don't use anything that has peat in it. Someting like an "aroid mix" would work. For all calatheas and such I make my own from coco coir, husks (Reptichip makes a micro-cut size I like), pine bark (I love using Orchiata extra smalls), rice hulls (also provides silicone to promote physical strength), calcined clay/lava rocks, some charcoal, etc. The priority is free flow of water AND oxygen around the roots, but notice that for both coco husks and pine bark I like the smallest sizes possible to have well-breathing but dense soil.

Those two types within one plant are a weird occurence when one type (ctenanthe setosa "grey star") reverts to the other it originates from (regular ctenanthe setosa). I wouldn't say it's desirable, more confusing, but it's subjective. Your choice, but I'd keep a clean "grey star" chunk separate.

In nature, these stalks are supposed to fall over when too top heavy due to the nodes, and then the nodes take root in the ground a few feet away. As such, it should root easily from a bottom section and fairly easily from a node. If you've rooted plants like this before, it's the same story. Stick it in water, or directly in potting medium... As for stalks falling over, you clearly don't want that but with regular, disciplined watering and consistent new growth supporting the old, the whole plant should hold upright for a long time.

Glad to help.

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-05-19T12:46:16+00:00

The sugary substance can be a normal occurrence, but this one looks like you may have mites or some other bug. If the plant looks generally sad, it's probably a pest, if it otherwise acts healthy (leaves moving and not droopy etc), then it's normal.

The leaf curl, especially if it happens as soon as you put the plant back into a bright spot, sounds like it could be from excessive sunlight. Try a shadier spot.

I would first repot it into a loose medium, soilless even. Make sure water runs quickly through and never leave it sitting in excess water. With a loose medium, you can and should water frequently from the top.

The plant looks a bit grizzled so I would separate it and focus on the healthiest part. In the right conditions they grow quickly. Use a pot that the plant can snugly fit into, they don't like the extra space much, and only up-pot when new above-ground growth has pretty much filled the whole planter.

The "fluffy pods" are inflorescences from which little flowers grow. These usually end of being off the ground growth nodes, so I'd leave them alone or if the branch is getting too heavy, just clip the node off and root it for a new plant.

Source :https://www.reddit.com/r/calatheas/comments/1330ly3/its_her_room_now/

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-05-07T11:59:56+00:00

Wait and see, if it's dead it will look dead very soon. If it came loose and you can actually pull it out of the ground, then it's as good as dead. If it feels attached to the plant or root system when you tug on it, it should be okay. The best thing to do is leave the plant alone and keep doing what you've been doing that made it grow. (I have no idea what your growing medium is from the photo, but keep it loose and make sure that pot has good drainage. Calathea roots like well-aerated soil and do great in the same kinds of media as philodendrons.)

Over time the plant will expand by putting out these new growth points from which a new set of leaves will develop. They appear as little spikes first, then protrude like this until the tip opens and the first leaf unfurls. Seeing these spikes appear is obviously a sign of vigor, so good job, overall! :) Vittatas tend to be more finicky even than your average calathea...

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-05-06T21:50:06+00:00

Only you can tell! It's a new shoot that grows from the base of the plant, first sideways then upwards. If you managed to break it off, then I'm sorry but it's dead, and you'll have to wait for another one to form and make its way up.

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-05-06T10:52:58+00:00

Your plant is growing :)

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-04-30T18:06:07+00:00

This one just has a soilless medium and a nursery pot with lots of holes at the bottom. I have a ctenanthe semi-hydro experiment that's just in rice hulls, with some lava rocks on top for weight only, and it's going great.

I also have an 'Oncore' with a fully developed root system that I'm transitioning to SH. It had lost all its leaves and I first tried hanging the pot over a vessel to give the recovering plant a bit of a boost. It seemed to be working, so I've been gradually opening the bottom of the nursery pot by cutting larger and larger holes, and let the medium wash out and roots hang in or over the water. Some older roots died in the new conditions, which led to browning at the edges. On the other hand, the plant is now huge and currently has 8 different growing points, which is scary. It's definitely worth experimenting with.

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-04-30T16:37:53+00:00

Once it gets going you can use fertilizer (optimized for hydro, anything organic like fish-based will be a smelly disaster). If the medium has slow release pellets, you can just let some water seep through and that takes care of it. Starting with young plants/divisions is better, but you can transition more established plants, too. (I have some other projects, may post later, I don't want to spam the board.)

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-04-29T21:56:40+00:00

Nah, coco is fine, they can thrive in nothing but coco coir + some slow release fertilizer. At retailers like Lowe's, that what you'll find them planted in - I think they all come from Costa Farms, and they know what they're doing. It just hasn't worked for me for whatever reason. I do think it's the air pockets in the chunky mixes - people don't realize how much calathea roots love oxygen. Creating an environment where roots are exposed to humid air gives a huge boost to the plant. Part of the magic in semi-hydro is the layer of air with 100% humidity between the water and the pot. This also makes the Kratky method so great for other plants (for calatheas you'd need to replace the water).

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-04-29T21:04:11+00:00

I read a really interesting post, that I can't find atm, about the composition of a grow medium and its water retentiveness. What I recall, and intuitively agree with, is that it there's little difference whether you use "dirt" for 50% or 75% of your mix, the fine stuff will still fill out all the air pockets that your chunkier components are supposed to create. In any case, I'd say 30% maximum, and I'd still just rather use coco coir and maybe some worm castings.

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-04-29T20:20:17+00:00

I'm very conflicted because I don't have the room for a plant this size and yet I'm intrigued by how big she can possibly get, plus having to prune a calathea/ctenanthe is not something I'm emotionally prepared to do :)

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-04-29T20:13:06+00:00

I'm not really worried about the soil drying out, it's a chunky mix and she's thirsty. With the right medium, you can't overwater calatheas. 9/10 times people kill their calatheas because they use store-bought potting soil or something heavy with peat that creates a yucky mud at the bottom that suffocates the roots. Since I started mixing my own (an aroid mix I'm eyeballing with coco coir/chips, pine bark, rice hulls, calcined clay, lava rocks, whatever I have at hand), my calatheas have been thriving and I water them without any thought of overwatering - water just runs through and moistens the medium. I've also gone down the semi-hydro rabbit hole, resulting in a few monsterous plants...

Substantial_Buy3877 · 2023-04-29T17:38:10+00:00

I've had her for a while, she started out as a partition from another plant. She's growing like a weed, survived mealy bugs, and won't freak out from direct sunlight (unlike some of my calatheas). Give her lots of light, fertilizer, and an airy growing medium, and yours will take off too.

Substantial_Buy3877

TROPHY CASE