What is you favorite material to mount with and where did you get it?

[isurus79]

I'm a big fan of driving around the forests and grabbing branches of hardwood that have fallen or been cut down. Its free!

[Magnus A]

Originally Posted by Cowboys East

Hey,
Magnus have you ever had to remove an established orchid from Epiweb for any reason? Pest, disease, dead roots, or something like that. I know it is an attractive media for things like bulbos but I wonder how the roots on my species Phals would take to it. By the way Magnus, please post some more pictures of your vivarium (orchidarium). I love the utilitarian look you got going. It is inspiring for us novice orchid growers.
Neil

Neil

No I have never removed a plant from Epiweb and it is more or less impossibly!
To divide a plant cut the slab in half and glue new material to the halfes.
If the plant outgrows the mount glue it and the slab
on a bigger slab.

And for pictures on my vivarium there are some coming in the future, I hope. I have rebuilt every on of my three vivariums and it took much longer time than planed due to non orchid related stuff.

/Magnus

[Louder Than Hell]

In my region we use a lot the cork of quercus suber (that's the one of wine caps) as it grows wild here.
Probably it's more expansive than others but it's very porous, light, decay resistant and I love the look

http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/7272/dsc01667.jpg
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8490/dsc01666s.jpg

You my find this blog entry intresting

[peeweelovesbooks]

I've used cypress, cork, now I'm using teak wood burls from RF orchids. I love the look of teakwood the best.

[chandraluna]

I'm new to this forum but hoping to fit right in with all you fellow orchid lovers!

I'm a bit of a novice but enjoy trying new things. Here in So. Fla. we are starting our summer rainy season and recent thunderstorms knocked a medium sized forked branch down from the ficus tree. I'm going to take a better look at it tomorrow to see if it will work and try a few dendrobiums on it.

I have a phal that's mounted on a smaller branch, with coconut fiber but just perched in the crook of the mango tree (we're currently renting and I'm not leaving my chids with the landlord!)

There's a lady down in Miami selling out her orchid farm (family health reasons) and she posts on Craigslist. I've bought quite a few root orchids from her, REAL cheap and I'm planning on "experimenting" with those....hopefully all will work and I'll have photos months down the line....!

[gnathaniel]

Originally Posted by harrywitmore

I really like cork and small sticks the best. I just mounted a number of things using dried Crape Myrtle wood. I like the look and I'm anxious to see how it does.

...<snip>...

I would like to use red cedar since I have tons of it but it seems that the orchids I try never seem to attach the roots to it even though it's old and weathered.

Harry, I've got quite a few things mounted on crape myrtle, it seems to rot very slowly and holds up well over time. It's got very low porosity, so I like to mount things on 'crotch' pieces with the crotch filled up with sphagnum and then the orchid sort of straddling it. Once the plant's better established the sheer volume of roots tends to give it better water retention, but I still tend to use it mostly for stuff that likes to dry off pretty quick, like Brassavolas, encyclias, etc.

I've only got a few things mounted on red cedar, but they seem to be doing very well, too. The bark's a bit fibrous so it holds some more water, somewhat like I hear melaleuca (paperbark) is supposed to work. I was a little concerned that the sappiness might have an allelopathic effect on the plants, but so far I've seen pretty wild root growth all over the cedar. Not sure about how long they took to establish roots b/c everything I have on cedar I bought that way, but I've certainly seen plenty of growth since I got them. YMMV, though.

--Nat

[Femme]

I mounted some of my orchids on rough surfaced European white birch with Spagh moss around the roots.
I havent experienced any problems yet, lets see in the future.

[lepanthes89]

I have settled on cork as my favorite mounting material.Tried treefern,sassafrass branches,etc.They all rot too soon.
By the way ,cork sheets (the ones used for corkboards) work just as well as natural cork bark.
Unless the plant mounted is xerophytic, I include some moss.Eventually live moss grows around it.

[Lorraine]

I have mounts on cork, grapevine wood, driftwood (all sizes) including Mopani hardwood from Petco, also a local reptile store has some cool wood, treefirn slabs & poles and wood vanda baskets no medium. I have 1 piece of cholla wood and looking for more. I have some on cocoanut halves that are doing fine too. When they start to disintegrate it's easy to pull apart and redo. I guess I have more on driftwood than anything else and it looks more interesting and multiple plants can be tucked in. I actually try anything that looks interesting. I am staying away from using plastic since there is no water retention. Happy mounting

[got ants]

Originally Posted by peeweelovesbooks

I've used cypress, cork, now I'm using teak wood burls from RF orchids. I love the look of teakwood the best.

I have a Dendrobium aggregetum mounted on teak that I purchased from Bang Jok orchids (sp?) down on Chrome Ave. It is just awesome. Now that I know RF has them for sale, I'll definitely have to get down there. Maybe stop by Ruebens at the same time.

btw, I have two Ghost orchids on stick mounts and the largest one has the stick splitting. I really dread messing with them to remount them....any recommends on a better mounting material for these?