Product Guide: All about LECA

What is LECA?

LECA is an acronym that stands for Lightweight Expanded Clay Aggregate and is also sometimes referred to as Hydro Clay Balls.

Essentially, it is little balls of clay that have expanded when they have been baked. They expand a little once they absorb a bit of water and have a rough/porous texture.

It's a soilless medium that can be used as a growing medium either by itself hydroponically (in water) or it can be mixed in with your current favourite mix to help with aeration and to prevent overwatering.

What are the benefits of growing in LECA?

Being nutrition-less little balls of clay, you may be wondering why exactly you should be growing your plants in this medium? There are many benefits to switching to growing hydroponically or adding it into your favourite mix:

IT'S REUSABLE! You can re-use LECA over and over again! It doesn't decompose over time whilst in use, so all you need to do is give it a good boil in between repotting to get rid of any potential infections!

LESS WATERING! When you grow your plants hydroponically, you of course have to water your plants less often, which is handy especially during the warmer months! That means less maintenance time & worry for those of you who may tend to overwater.

LESS ROOT ROT! Root rot is caused by your plant's roots having 'too much' access to water or receiving too much, too frequently. LECA helps to prevent this! As it is so porous, it allows the right amount of oxygen to reach those roots. LECA will absorb all the excess water that the plant doesn't need, allowing the roots to take only what they need. Goodbye root rot!

FEWER PESTS! A side effect of root rot is that it can attract pests & bugs that LOVE feeding off them. Less root rot, fewer pests! Fungus Gnats also don't like laying their eggs in LECA as it doesn't harbour the right conditions, so no more annoying flying bugs! There are many more pests that LECA can also help prevent, so another win for LECA!

How to prepare LECA

There is a little bit of prep work involved in using LECA, but it is important to get this part right to ensure your plants receive the full benefits!

Rinse/Wash your LECA: The first thing to do once you've received your bag is to give it a good thorough washing. It will be covered in a fine powder/dust which can inhibit your plants from receiving all the benefits. We suggest rinsing it in a bucket outside, NOT IN YOUR SINK as it can clog it up. Give it a good thorough wash, and keep replacing the water until it is as clear as you can get it.
Soak The LECA: Once clean, soak it in a fresh bucket of water for 48hrs (2 days). You can soak it for up to 48hrs straight if you prefer, however we recommend that you tip out the water after 24hrs and re-fill it with water that has had nutrients added and then soak for another 24hrs.

Then you are all ready to go! If you wish to prep all of your LECA in one go, simply follow the same steps and then store it for later use! Soak it for another 24hrs before you use it after being stored.

How to use LECA

There are a few different methods in which you can use LECA.
Here are some ideas to get you started:

Hydroponically: Once you have planted your plant into the LECA, fill up your cover pot with water until it is about 1/4 full. Sink your pot into the water so the water should submerge the pot to about 1/2 full.

The 'Reservoir' method: With some of the LECA you prepared earlier, create a reservoir in the bottom of your cover pot by placing a thin layer of LECA at the bottom and adding water to the reservoir until it just overlaps the bottom of the pot. The LECA will wick up as much water as it needs for the plant!

As a soil additive: You can mix the prepared LECA straight into your current favourite house plant mix to help with aeration!

Orchids: Orchids also love being grown in LECA We recommend mixing it in about 50/50 with orchid bark to help prevent overwatering your orchid.

How to transfer a plant from soil to LECA

If you're wanting to transfer your plant that is currently growing in regular soil to LECA, there are a few steps you'll need to take first:

Prepare your LECA.
Tip your plant out of its pot and THOROUGHLY CLEAN THOSE ROOTS! You will need to remove any trace of dirt, bark, spagmoss, perlite, etc from the roots before potting it up. A good tip is to water your plant the day before you do this so the soil is already loose & comes off more easily.
Pot it up in the LECA as described above!

Is there any maintenance required?

When you transfer a plant from a soil mix, it will take them a while to adjust. This is because the plant's roots will need to adjust from growing in soil to essentially growing in water. Once you've transferred your plant, you'll need to keep an eye on it to ensure it is adjusting properly and to make sure it is growing new roots.

Once you see those new roots coming through, there is very little maintenance for growing in LECA. We recommend 'flushing' or changing out the water in the pot every month to make sure that the plant is receiving fresh water & nutrients, but other than that you should be good to go!

How to fertilise with LECA

LECA is a nutrition-less medium, meaning it contains no nutrients of its own. This means that you absolutely should be adding some kind of fertiliser into the water when you initially pot up your plant, and every flush/water change thereafter.

Which fertiliser should you use?

Due to the lack of nutrients in LECA, you will need to use what we refer to as a 'complete' fertiliser. A complete fertiliser is one that contains more than just your standard NPK (nitrogen, phosphorous & potassium). Though these are indeed the main nutrients that your plants need to thrive, there are so many more micro-nutrients that a fertiliser needs to claim that it is 'complete'.

Two examples of complete fertilisers available on our website are Superthrive (formerly Dyna-gro) and Growth Technology. Both of these are suitable for use with LECA and will provide those micro-nutrients that standard NPK fertilisers don't.

Final recommendations

Before you go all guns blazing & re-pot all your plants into LECA, we highly recommend giving it a go on one or two plants first, to make sure you get the hang of it and to decide whether or not growing in LECA is something that is right for you, because it isn't for everyone!

We also recommend starting with one of your 'less expensive' plants in case anything goes wrong, and sometimes unfortunately it does! It is all a part of the learning process with plants!

DON'T SKIMP ON THE FERTILISER! We know it can be tempting to buy the cheapest feed on the market and hope it works, but 9 times out of 10 you'll be wasting your time & money! You invest in the purchase of your plants, so you'll need to invest in keeping them alive!

So, give it a go, you never know you may LOVE it, find your plants thrive more than they ever did!

- The GrowingGreen Team.x