Podangis Envy

[MJG]

I bought this one from Marlow and have been hanging it the way you suggest the entire time. Do you think i should go back to watering it every day? I had backed off to every other day for the last 4 days.

[Roberta]

With your humidity that high, every other day is likely fine. It really does need to dry out.
Notes from the Baker culture sheet in Orchidwiz:

"Cultivated plants should be watered heavily when actively growing, but their roots must dry fairly quickly after watering. I. & E. LaCroix (1997) report that the roots on this species tend to rot if overwatered. Their plant is grown in a fir bark mix which they allow to dry out before watering again"

Yours is a little different situation in that it is mounted. But the concept is the same... it doesn't want to stay wet. So if your humidity is high (which it is) such that it doesn't dry out, adjust accordingly.

[camille1585]

To add to Roberta's excellent information, these tolerate dryness rather well. As you've seen I grow mine potted, and tend to let it get rather dry between waterings, which it tolerates very well. So I agree that you could start watering every 2 days to see how it goes.

If you start to see a few wrinkles in the leaves then you know that you've gone too far in the other direction, but they they tolerate that level of dryness quite well and the leaves plump up really quickly once you adjust your watering. Basically my approach to watering my potted plant is to err on the side of dryness and adjust watering upwards as needed until I find the sweet spot. I imagine that the same approach can be used on a mounted plant.

[Roberta]

OK. Still a few flowers to open, but I'm tired of waiting... this is the plant that I have had for several years. I had it in a plastic basket with sphagnum. It bloomed each year, but hasn't been growing much... add a couple of new leaves, lose a couple of old leaves. It also seems to have picked up some sort of fungal ick on the oldest leaves. Those spots have dried up and show no signs of spreading, however. When I unpotted it I found some bad roots, and a few good ones. So I cleaned up the bad ones, and mounted the plant with just a little sphagnum for extra moisture. From my reading, I have learned that these really don't like their roots wet.I also mounted it pointed downward, following Marlow's logic of keeping water out of the leaf axils. Mounting it when the spike had already started to develop does not seem to have caused any problem. So I'm hoping that the plant grows better going forward. This one has been in the greenhouse, and I will continue to grow it there. First two photos show the flowers, the 3rd one shows the mount.

My new one (spikes developing, it'll be a couple of weeks before it is ready to show) will live outside, I want to see if it is as cold-tolerant as my research leads me to believe.

[Keysguy]

You guys are making me nervous with this mounting vs pot discussion.
I've mentioned how much I despise plants being potted in 100% sphagnum (which is how my Podangis arrived). Add the fact that most of my 3 spikes of buds blasted and I'm thinking I should get mine out of the pot but I have nothing here to mount it on. All my supplies are in FL so I was trying to hold off on this until I get there in late Oct.
My current alternative would be to re-pot in fine Orchiata (Only media I have here). Is that a better alternative to the way it is? I've cut back to watering only every 4 days at which point it is dry. I just worry about that sphagnum because at some point I may not be able to get it to re-hydrate and I'll have a hell of a time getting the plant out of it when I do want to mount it.

[DirtyCoconuts]

Is it in a net pot? Do you have thread or fishing line?

You could make a little mount in the net pot with sphag and bark and then mount it on the outside of the pot?

[WaterWitchin]

Could you take a walk outside and pick up a stick? Use some Spanish moss over it, if you have no sphag?

I'd be nervous having it stay in sphag until October as well. But I'm nervous about anything in sphag. We don't play well in the sandbox together.

[camille1585]

Originally Posted by Keysguy

You guys are making me nervous with this mounting vs pot discussion.
I've mentioned how much I despise plants being potted in 100% sphagnum (which is how my Podangis arrived). Add the fact that most of my 3 spikes of buds blasted and I'm thinking I should get mine out of the pot but I have nothing here to mount it on. All my supplies are in FL so I was trying to hold off on this until I get there in late Oct.
My current alternative would be to re-pot in fine Orchiata (Only media I have here). Is that a better alternative to the way it is? I've cut back to watering only every 4 days at which point it is dry. I just worry about that sphagnum because at some point I may not be able to get it to re-hydrate and I'll have a hell of a time getting the plant out of it when I do want to mount it.

I'd be really nervous about keeping a Podangis in sphag, and I'm someone who can successfully grow plants in sphagnum. My experience with this plant potted is that you need to be really really careful about moisture, even in bark. I would repot it in the bark you have but make sure your pot has a ton of holes (net pot or attack a normal pot with a soldering iron).

[Keysguy]

We don't play well in the sandbox together.

Same here WW.

mount it on the outside of the pot?

That just gave me an idea DC.
I don't want to use a NH native stick. Unless it's oak it will rot quickly and my plan is to mount it on a cedar shingle when I get it south. But what I could do is wrap the outside of the pot it came in (clear plastic side slotted pot) with plastic "pet proof" screening material and with just a smidge of sphag, mount it to outside of the pot like that. I would think that in 4 months the roots won't penetrate the plastic screen but they can hold to it so I could remove screen and all from the outside of pot and just transfer to the shingle. Maybe???
I would definitely get itself better airflow for drying that way and I can water daily if I need to.

[DirtyCoconuts]

Very much a good idea. You’ll have great air movement through the screen and if it gets super happy and grows through the screen, just cut around and add the screen to the eventual shingle.