With moss, it tends to hold more moisture, and watering too frequently may crowd out the air. You generally don't want to let it get crispy-dry because then it tends to be too hard to re-wet. But what you use for a container makes a difference. Yes, a plastic pot with sphagnum may tend to stay too wet. But if you use a plastic basket, sphagnum may maintain the right amount of moisture even with frequent watering since it will dry out fast. Or, you might use sphagnum in a terracotta pot for heat-sensitive orchids such as pleurothallids... the moss stays damp and the clay pot soaks up some of that water which evaporates at the surface, cooling the roots. So first, you need to decide what is the objective for each type. Then adjust the medium to give you the result you seek.
With an automatic watering system, you can adjust the medium depending on the plant type so that when all get watered the same, the end result is appropriate. I think I described this in another recent post - my Cymbidiums and L. anceps both need high light so they are in the same area, with the same sprinklers. The Cyms are in small bark in plastic pots, and stay pretty wet, the L. anceps are mounted or in baskets with little medium, and dry out fast (like a couple of hours after watering). So they all get the same (frequent) watering but the result for each is what they want, and very different.
I have a lot of my hanging plants - especially Maxillariae and Oncidinae - in plastic baskets with sphagnum. They get watered every day or two (especially in hot weather), stay quite damp but also get plenty of air (as the water evaporates from the sphag, it is replaced by... you guessed it... air!)
As far as fertilizing is concerned, the "once weekly, weakly" idea still holds. Orchids need very little fertilizer, since they grow slowly - they use fertilizer minerals primarily for growing new tissue, they meet their energy needs (carbs) by photosynthesis. If you under-fertilize, the plants may grow more slowly than is optimum, but they aren't harmed. If you over-fertilize you can burn roots and do long-term damage. So err on the low side. If you increase fertilizer, do so gently, and wait to see if it makes any difference. Patience!
(For the record, I go through my growing area with a sprayer, applying a very dilute - 1/2 teaspoon per gallon MSU fertilizer, about every 2 weeks. For the few things that are growing fast and therefore need more than that, such as the Cymbidiums, and during the summer growing season the Catasetinae, I just give a top-dressing of time release fertilizer such as Nutricote, once in the spring to give a bit of extra boost to those plants)
Last edited by Roberta; 08-13-2023 at 01:19 AM..
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Hybrid Mode
