Phalaenopsis - moss vs bark

[bil]

Originally Posted by turock

Hahaha, can't type through the laughter!

But yes, both bark and moss are resources that have merits for different plants, environments and growers. I love to water my plants, so mounts are great for me. Plus, my environment is super humid in the summer.

But, in the dry winter, i throw moss on top of the bark medium to keep my fragile plants more humid. I also use a moss/bark mixture to transition store-bought plants out of the soggy rotting moss they invariably started in, and into a full time bark medium.

Perhaps I'm destined for plant purgatory??


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My child, be not tempted!

Kidding aside, moss can be useful. Newly removed keikis and other plants with less than perfect roots can be helped by it, and my Den Nobiles which I have at the top of the greenhouse have honking wads in there as they dry out so fast. I learnt this the hard way when I saw them drooping. They are now watered every day in full summer, misted by the auto system all day and they still get a bit dry.

One nice little den basically came to pieces when I repotted it, so I potted it up with some wads of moss by the roots, and each piece is thriving and shooting now. One poor little pseudobulb with a single defiant leaf and no roots was about to be thrown out, and then I thought "Oh sod it!" and I wrapped the bulb in moss and planted that, not really expecting any good to come of it. Last month I suddenly realised that even that had thrown a new shoot.

Moss is useful I don't deny it but I would never let it near my phals. I'd simply rather water more and know root rot is a lot less likely.

[cjm3fl]

I'm going to side with those saying that the answer to the bark/moss 'argument' really depends on your local environment and how much time you can spend tending your Phals.

Living in central Florida I have found that a 80% (bark)-20% (moss) works great for me on my adult and flowering phals.

I have some young phals and a nursery one (Dad had a brown thumb and mom had a black thumb) where I'm using about a 50-50% mix.
These young and nursery ones are doing great.

My adult ones, hung from a double-T that is under a large oak tree, have only now stopped sending off new blooms--and are now producing offshoots and keikis.
These guys have experienced 5 inches in rain in 3 hours, followed by 95* heat with over 90% humidity right after the clouds depart.
Of those (very few) weeks where it only rains once, and I have to water, the 80-20 mix allows the baskets to drain quickly yet still maintain sufficient moister.

Now if I was still living up in Philadelphia, were I was born and raised, and thought about adding moss to the mix, at this time of year, I'd be concerned about chilly temps and damp moss could cause damage to the roots.

[Optimist]

I am also gravitating toward a kind of orchid kokedama. Maybe a few nougats of wood in the center. I have been using hickory cubes, not orchid bark. (Hickory is a wood favored by some orchids in the Everglades. In some orchids there is beneficial cooperation between mushroom (or fungus) spores and orchids.)

[bil]

Originally Posted by Optimist

I am also gravitating toward a kind of orchid kokedama. Maybe a few nougats of wood in the center. I have been using hickory cubes, not orchid bark. (Hickory is a wood favored by some orchids in the Everglades. In some orchids there is beneficial cooperation between mushroom (or fungus) spores and orchids.)

I always thought that was true of ALL plants. Fungi form a network around the roots, and trade nutrients.

[Leafmite]

I grow nearly everything mounted, in red lava rock or LECA and basket pots. It just works the best for me. I have tried bark at various times and it always leads to death where my orchids are concerned. Even my Pleiones didn't seem to like it very well this summer. I do use NZ Sphagnum moss for some of my plants, as a top dressing for my mini orchids or to encourage a new plant to put down roots. For a time, when one of my Angraecum leonis wouldn't root, I staked it on top of tightly packed moss (with a lava rock or two in the middle) and it finally rooted (that leonis is finally doing well in leca, like the other).

What a grower should use depends on what works for them or for that individual orchid.

[estación seca]

If you really want to learn something, pack some moss into an empty container, soak it, and weigh it every day until it stops getting lighter. You will have some idea of how long it takes to dry out in your conditions without a plant taking up water.

I bought some tiny seedlings of various genera. They arrived in 2" / 5cm plastic pots, packed in sphagnum. I spray the tops of the pots with rain; I don't soak the sphagnum. In a room that has 40%-60% relative humidity, and temperatures in the low to upper 80s F / 25-30C, it takes these tiny pots 5-6 days to dry completely, and 4-5 days for the tops to become dry to my touch.

[Zabeta]

I used to never get phals to grow for me, at all. I had several for almost a year before they even grew any roots. My climate is also very dry, and I had them in a mixture of bark and moss.

THEN I tried semi-water culture, where you just place the roots in very lightly fertilized water for a few days, then dump the water out and let the roots dry for the rest of the week. For my climate, about three days water/four days no water works. Now ALL of my phals are growing new roots and leaves. One is currently growing its fourth leaf this season. One that has been sick since I got it over a year ago - a couple crappy roots and two limp leaves - and totally unresponsive to any other treatment is now growing a very healthy new leaf and several new roots.

Now I'm experimenting with other types of orchids in SWC. I love it!! It's easy, it's cheap, and for phals at least, it's by far the best method I've found for my climate.

[WhiteRabbit]

I grow Phals in either bark or sphag - they do well for me in sphag, but I prefer not to repot (to replace the sphag) annually, so I go mostly with bark.

[veda.maas]

I am thinking that this might only work with Phals established in moss. I would probably not transplant from bark to moss


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