Hangin planters with Phrags?

[AuGrower]

I recently purchased some wall hanging planters I will be using in the living room. I plan on using some tropical plants mixed with some orchids(hopefully).

Does anyone know if phrags would be the best to use since they are lower light and do well with more water? If so what species should I look for. Always wanted a sorcerers' apprentice, but I think that might be a little large.

Here is a link to what I am planting them in.
New LIving Wall Planter

[birdybrain]

I can't specifically help with your question, but just wanted to say that I have 19 of the felt Wally ones in my office building that I hung, planted and care for. We've had some trouble due to starting with plants that were too small & the location of some heating vents, but we absolutely love them & get tons of compliments! I own 4 of these new plastic ones, but I haven't hung them yet.

I don't have any orchids in my Wally ones, but I have considered sinking a cover pot into the soil, then setting a regular orchid pot inside it. Then just remove the orchid pot for watering separately. I think something that gets full & tall like a sharry baby would be a good fit with these planters. Possibly a phal if planted near the front edge with the cover pot sunk at an angle so it could hang almost like it is mounted. I'm sure paphs & phrags would work well near the front of the pocket if in their own pots.

You can PM me if you'd like to see pics or have non-orchid plant questions. I love living walls!

[AuGrower]

Thanks for your reply. I figured I could do some phals in their own pots. You think I could bloom some oncidium indoors? Well I figured the phrags would be great since the are terrestrial. The setup is nice since they will never be sitting in water.

[birdybrain]

It all depends on your lighting situation. We have 3 pockets in an office with no windows & lights off on the weekends. Obviously this would not be ideal for any orchid, but we have many foliage plants doing really well in that office. If you have enough light & the right temps, I'm sure oncidiums will bloom for you.

For phrags or any orchid, I think a separate pot would be best for both watering & fertilizer purposes. The felt pockets I have can't be removed from the wall, so I have to use distilled water & only slow release fertilizer. The planters you're getting can be removed from the wall & taken outside for a good watering, which would help avoid a buildup of salts, but might not be very convenient.

Also, if you use a separate pot you could easily trade out orchids in the wall pocket according to what's in bloom at the moment. That would be a nice way to enjoy your blooming orchids.

If you hang the pockets vertically, I would avoid putting any orchids up too high unless you have plenty of humidity. Our office building has very low humidity in winter, even with fountains added to each office. Where we hung pockets vertically, the top pockets are just over 6 feet high and the top pocket dries out noticeably faster than the any of the pockets lower down due to more heat near the ceiling. Also if there's a heat vent near the area where you will hang your Wally pockets, get one of those magnetic deflectors to keep the heat from blowing directly on the plants & pockets.

If you're going to do a large number of pockets, consider running drip line with pressure compensating drippers for all the pockets. Then when you need to water, bring in a bucket of water, hook up a submersible pump on a timer and it will do the watering for you. I'm in the process of setting this up at my office so I don't have to hand water 19 individual pockets with a pressure sprayer.

Now that you've brought this up, I'm tempted to try these new pockets using only orchids and other epiphytes like Hoyas, bromeliads, anthuriums, birds nest ferns, etc. If you went this route, you could possibly plant the orchids directly in the pocket without a pot, because these plants could all use similar potting media and fertilizer, plus be removed for flushing. Hmmm... I'll also have to look into possibly doing this as a semi hydroponic set up if its not too much trouble to take the planters off the wall & tote them to the bathtub for the weekly watering/flushing that's needed.

Whatever you decide to do, please post pics when you get your pockets planted!

[silken]

I have 3 Phrags and they like to sit in shallow water. There are maybe some that don't like to be so wet, but I think many of them do.