Trouble with wood mounts that rot

[susiep]

I have a problem and hopefully I will get some good suggestions. I live down in south Florida where heat and humidity causes all wood that is not pressure treated to rot. My problem is over the last year or two I have aquired a taste for species orchids and have purchased almost 20 from a grower that has beautiful plants, but they are almost all mounted on natural wood branches. Over the last few month I realize these things are not lasting much more than a year. But now I have all these plants!

I don't know about most of you, but when I buy a mounted plant, I don't plan on having to remount it within one year. Repotting maybe, but mounts should be more permanent. .

The first plant I lost was a big den chrysotoxum (first picture). It died just a few months ago. On this den, there was a wood boring beetle that came with the mount. He bored out and left a big 1/4" hole in the mount. I called and told them about it and they said don't worry, the beetle couldn't do any harm since he would not survive in Florida. But within a few months the mount completely rotted and got moldy. So I called for help with remounting. I did my best with the remount but the plant didn't take the whole experience well and died within a few more months. I called them explaining what happened (again) and to see about getting another den chrysotoxum. I was hopeful that I would at least be offered a discount on the replacement. But I was not offered anything but more advice and was told that I should have taken pictures. I don't know why, I guess to prove something. They had never told me to take pictures on the previous calls. By then the plant was already discarded. I decided to just think seriously about not buying from them any more. Am I wrong here?

Now the mount has decomposed on my den findlayanum. It was purchased just last May. I have attached pictures of this den and it's decomposing mount. As you can see it just crumbled when I bent it. The problem is the roots grew into the the center of the rotting wood branch. Do I just leave the rotten stuff as is and tie it to another mount? Or try to wash off this rotten stuff. You can see my concern as I already lost one this way. Also, this time I took lots of pictures. Should I call the vendor or just accept this as reasonable

Also, there are a couple pics of some of my other mounted plants. I am worried that more will rot and there are some of these that won't survive remounting. Like the ghost which is doing very well. It has 2 new roots.

Sorry for the long tale, but I thought if you know the history you would understand why I am so aggravated. Any suggestions and/or opinions would be greatly appreciated.