What Kind of Wood to use

[Paschendale]

Originally Posted by catherinecarney

The medicinal use of willow involves making a decoction of the bark, so I'm not sure that much if any of the active compounds would be present in the wood.

Catherine

And from what I understand about the process, you mainly want to use year-old or younger willow growth anyway to make it. I would think you'd want to use older wood for mounts. Besides, most of the willow wood I've dealt with is pretty soft and not terribly rot resistant.

[catherinecarney]

Willow is a pretty soft wood, and it does seem to rot faster than the locust/osage orange on the brush piles....Might be interesting to try a decoction of the bark/twigs/leaves as a fertilizer additive and see if there's any root benefit to it, though.

Anyone tried hawthorn, dogwood, or apple/pear for orchids?

Catherine

[Paschendale]

Have not tried any, but would guess hawthorn would do well. It's pretty hardy and has interestingly twisty branches.

[catherinecarney]

That's why I was looking at hawthorn as a possibility. It also has pretty heavily textured bark. Dogwood is the same way. Not too mention that I have easy access to both from my trees....The downside to hawthorn is the thorns--they're long (over and inch in some species), hard, and sharp (I've had them go through the soles of my boots before)!

Catherine

[Paschendale]

Yep, they have some vicious thorns, no doubt.

[catherinecarney]

Osage orange thorns are actually worse, but both will go through the sole of a shoe and are long enough to go into your foot--found that out the hard way.

My stockpiles of wood and bark are buried under the snow (gotta love winter in Ohio), so looks like I'll have to wait until the end of the week to work on mounting the plants.

Catherine

[Paschendale]

How do you do your mounts? I mean, do you use logs, sticks or just sheets of bark pulled from the logs? I have never done one, but I am interested in trying it. I will have to spend a few hours poking around in the treelines around the edge of the pasture, apparently. Or else, if the weather holds cold but not rainy, go poke around down in the swamp. What sorts of things do you look for in a mount, interesting shapes or is the bark quality more important?

[catherinecarney]

I've tried some different things. I started with cork bark (easy to find in the reptile section of the local pet store), but cork has gone up a lot in the past year, and being the cheapskate I am I started looking for alternatives.....

I was thinning out a grape arbor this past spring and ended up with a number of thicker trunks and stumps, lots of twists and ridges on them, so I tried a Catt. schilleriana and a Den. aggregatum on them--the schilleriana is happily growing new roots and attaching to the grapevine but the aggregatum is still sulking....

I've got locust bark (nice big sheets off the trunks of a couple of trees that came down) and a couple of rose "stumps" stockpiled (been grubbing the multiflora roses out of the pasture) along with branches from the trees (apple, pear, maple, oak, locust, and osage orange). I tend to look for things that are pretty gnarled with lots of nooks/crannies/twists to it so that it will have places for water/moss/roots to hold on.

When I mount my orchids, I put a small pad of sphagnum under the plant, then secure it with regular poly/cotton all purpose sewing thread. I figure by the time the thread rots away the plant will have rooted to the mount. I've also used short sections of fence wire (no shortage of that when you have a farm) to "pin" the orchid and sphagnum to a cork mount--again, by the time the wire rusts away the orchid will have secured itself.

I look for interesting pieces first and foremost--knobby, burled, bent, twisted pieces seem to look best to me. I want pieces with lots of places to hold water and encourage the plants to attach. Once I find a piece I still may toss it if the wood is crumbling away--I figure the orchid is going to be on it for a while, so the wood needs to last. I've been using screw in hooks at the tops of the mounts to hang them in the windows, and that seems to be working, though it may be easier to just drill a hole and run a twist of wire through it.

Sometimes seeing a picture makes things easier--I'll have to see if I can talk my teenager (rather stressed and cranky right now with term papers and finals) into getting some pix for me....

Have fun hunting for your orchid mounts! Remember snakes tend to hide under logs and brushpiles, so be careful!

Catherine

[Paschendale]

Many thanks! That gives me some ideas to go on. I had it in my head to look for limb sections that looked like it could support an orchid plant, were it growing in the orchid's natural habitat, then hope those limb sections wouldn't be too heavy to hang later.

More and more I am thinking seriously about going and checking out the swamp below our house. I figure anything growing down in there must be pretty water resistant...I know there are cypress and magnolia in there, no telling what else. We also have a good many cedars here and there on the property and tons of oak.

Yep, I make a habit out of watching for snakes outside, mainly due to the nearness of that swamp...we have a good many water moccasins down in there, I'm fairly sure. In the yard I try to keep an eye out for the king snakes....I encourage them to hang around mainly because they keep the moccasins away. That's why I won't go into that swamp until it gets cold...safer that way.

---------- Post added at 01:09 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:59 PM ----------

Originally Posted by JC Espinosa

I'm one of those nuts who pulls over for good piece of wood by the side of the road. Picked up a 5foot branch of avocado a few days ago.

I am terribly prone to pulling over for roadside finds as well. Thank heavens for pickup trucks!

---------- Post added at 01:11 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:09 PM ----------

Originally Posted by JC Espinosa

Orchids will grow on bricks and concrete blocks. That's probably my next Phal torture. Cedar is good, birch I don't know.

I wondered if the bricks would be suitable...was poking around the backyard this past weekend and noticed some old bricks that were sprouting a lovely crop of moss and thought that would look very nice if an orchid could safely be grown amongst that moss.

[catherinecarney]

Never met a water mocassin, and don't really want to--from what I've read they can be rather aggressive. Be safe! Up here all we have are copperheads (pretty shy) and a couple of rattlers (timber and eastern massasauga--also pretty shy). Just remember to wear boots and use a stick or pry bar to lift up branches rather than reaching for them....

Cypress could be really interesting to work with--the buttress roots I've seen in pix look neat. People use cedar shakes/shingles for orchids (got one from Andy's that's mounted that way). I do have some Magnolia hybrids in the yard, so will have to set aside some branches when I prune them next year--I do know that magnolia leaves are fairly slow to decay (and some fish breeders swear by them in breeding tanks for their hard to spawn species).

Bricks sound interesting to try, and I have a few lying around. I don't know what the clay content in them would be like for orchids, but people grow on lava and concrete, so I would think it's doable.

BTW, pickup trucks?? While I have one (usually not running more often than it runs), I find that I can fit almost everything I need to haul into my Corolla (including 10' lengths of lumber).....The truck only comes out for livestock (although one famous year we took 4 sheep, 3 chickens, and 2 ducks to county fair in the back of the car), hay, gravel, or LARGE lumber orders (grin).....

Catherine