Floating gardens, simple hydroponics with living soil for difficult plants

[partisangardener]

Lately I discovered another Orchid species seedling. I hope there are more somewhere. Probably next year it will be more easy to discover them, when they are grown a bit.

[partisangardener]

This one is quite small.
I found yesterday another one which is much bigger and I do not know why I saw it not before.
It looks not very healthy but the new leaf is bright green.

[partisangardener]

Isn't it a bit late for new foliage at this time of the year?

[Maggi Young]

Isn't it a bit late for new foliage at this time of the year?

Nothing surprses me anymore!

[partisangardener]

Today I had a look at this island. Substrate is 80% used coffee ground and the rest is a few moss patches, some acidic sand mixed with decaying Picea-needles from a wet forest.
No wonder that it had some problems, but why did it germinate just  there? Of course I shed the seed capsules every where, because I had so much of some.

Another interesting fact, it is seemingly the only one which has a certain fungus fruiting there, Scutellinia the exact species is just a guess.. Quite beautiful and never observed before by me.

[partisangardener]

There are some square Islands floating on empty plastic containers. On one I dumped too old seeds.
Some very unlikely germination happened.
This is a Sideritis seedling. I wonder how it will fare through winter (wet and cold) 
If it dies I have new seeds from this year and germinate it there to be transplanted in the summer then.

[partisangardener]

There are setbacks too
No sign of hibernacle from the outstanding supposed Drosera linearis yet. I guess there where old seeds in the substrate. I had in this small bog where the substrate was from 5 years ago some D. capensis. (Only half a meter from the place I took the substrate from) Still very puzzling to me.
They did not come back, but had flowers in the first year. No seedlings in all the time.
https://www.srgc.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=18726.75

Other islands where I have seeds of D.linearis from Canada germinated less good and grew quite slow, as I am used to.
There the plants already developed hinbernacle like most other Droseras like filiformis, intermedia and anglica.
So I was wrong, sorry.

The wrong ones have very slender leafs. I might take some plants indoor. I have none like this left in my other setups.

[partisangardener]

For the long wintertime a view of a very nice Polygala paucifolia seedling. Seems to be quite difficult to keep.
A friend of mine had a beutiful batch grown from seeds. Plantlets from this place which I got, always died after some month apart from one exception.
Knorbs (my friend) had to remove his many years old batch recently and all died short afterwards.
Yours Botanically Inclined had seeds to offer and I took some.
Dispersed them on a dozen Islands(2-3 each). On 4 I have noted seedlings. Without the pictures of seedlings on the Canadian site I wouldn't stand a chance to identify them.

[partisangardener]

Mandragora spec from Crete germinated on one of these Islands. I did it not on purpose but sometimes dirt and seeds end there.
They grow quite well untill now.

[partisangardener]

Since they did so well I will try Mandragora caulescens from which I got seeds.
The Species from Crete has some older ones in my tomato pots. Maybe the flower the coming year and I find out what species this is.

[partisangardener]

Sphagnum looks now stunningly beautiful.

[partisangardener]

And this

[partisangardener]

I have some seedlings from the Orchid family on another island from the same time.
Seeds of the following species were sown on all of the islands.

Epipactis palustris, several Dactylorhiza species, Cypripedium reginae and Calopogon. I could not detect them on other island jet.
Germination occurred on life Sphagnum derived from an old artificial  bog without Orchids apart from Cypripedium reginae.

They formed bulbs and are probably Calopogon tuberosis. First year from seed.

[partisangardener]

This one is quite small.
I found yesterday another one which is much bigger and I do not know why I saw it not before.
It looks not very healthy but the new leaf is bright green.

This seedling developed kind of a bulb. About 4 Millimeter

[partisangardener]

Rectangular buckets with high substrate tends to tip  one way or another. So tried different solutions.
The weight of ice or big plants countered my efforts quite regularly, if I had more than 20 centimeters substrate above waterline.

I want to show my latest attempt to solve this matter.
I had four stainless steel rods from a scrapyard at home. Some thin plastic tubes for electric wiring had to be bought.
First step is bending one side of the steel rod.