Has anyone had experience on using heat beds. I.e. height of pot/deph of potting mix. before the heating effect become noneffective.
As far as I know, the main benefit of using heat mats on adult plants is to keep their feet warm. When we lived in our other house, the plant room was quite chilly in the winter. I installed a heating cable on one of my fluorescent light benches. The pots rested on a bed of vermiculite or gravel with the cable buried in it. Not sanitary, but otherwise it worked fine. I kept my Phals, other warm growing orchids, and a Florida buttonwood there. The size of the pot was irrelevant. A thermometer at the height of the top of an average pot registered a few degrees warmer than the rest of the room. The cable went off at night to simulate a natural drop in temperature.
Iris
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