Cataseum pileatum

[Bruno De Toni]

Thanks Gena, golforchid, and Aceetobe.

May I ask what the composition of your media is, and how often you water? And finally, do they only get your water, or are they open to the rain as well?

The catasetum media I use is a mix of tree palm fiber, pieces of dry old wood (not descomposed yet but close) and charcoal. Catasetums likes decompose wood actually you find them in nature on rotten tree branches and on palm trees. At this stage I water every two or three days and fertilizing every two weeks with a very high nitrogen content fertilizer ( I use masterblend 30 10 10). Some of my plants are open to rain and I try to water them with rain water as much as possible.

Bruno - is that a plastic 2 liter soda bottle that you are using for your growing container? If so, would you include a quick note about how you converted it
Thanks

Yes, I use coke or pepsi plastic bottles as a container. This method is known as ´'PET' and has been widely used by brazilian growers. To me is the best container for catasetinaes, they like it a lot because during the resting phase they can find some humidity left at the very bottom of the pot. What I do is to cut the bottle in two half, and I open holes at the bottom and to the sides, then I fill up the base of the container with red brick grit for drainage and then is followed with the media I wrote above. Finally I hang them in my greenhouse in the most windy and hotest place.

[Aceetobe]

Thanks Bruno, I had learned the PET method from Dan Souza's blog, but never learned the media.

Is the palm fiber more like coir?



or is it more like this?

[Bruno De Toni]

Is more like picture N° 2, actually I cut it with scissors in small pieces and mix it with wood and charcoal. You have also to include some organic dirt (decomposed oraginc matter).