New Laelia milleri - medium advise needed

[rbarata]

Hello, my friends

Bought a Laelia milleri and I need some advise on how to pot it.

The material I have available are:

1 clay pot (small, proportional to the plant size).

LECA (large and small size)

Sphagnum

Coco chips

Cork chips

Large, medium and small size bark

What do you sugest?

Thanks

P.S. - The plant has roots

[estación seca]

Have you successfully grown plants in pure sphagnum before? Water just the top, then let it soak into and just dampen the rest?

[rbarata]

Originally Posted by estación seca

Have you successfully grown plants in pure sphagnum before?

No, I haven't.

[Dollythehun]

I do that with my phals and oncidiums. They are in clay pots. I've never had the nerve to try moss except on the babies.

[rbarata]

Here are some photos...it's still in its package as I don't want to take it out unless I know what to do regarding the medium.
It has a new growth.

[estación seca]

My experience with rupicolous Laelias, in a hot dry climate such as yours, is that I can't water them enough in medium bark. They dry out and the new growths die.

When I get a round Tuit I'm going to put my single remaining primary rupicolous hybrid into sphagnum, and water as described above. Alan Koch told our society about using a "collar" of sphagnum wrapped tightly around the neck of a plant in a pot, then stuffed into a clay pot, with a large air space beneath the sphagnum in the pot. I'm going to try that.

Somebody here in the last 6 months posted about hearing a talk where the lecturer said to switch all the rupics to sphagnum, and they will do a lot better.

[rbarata]

The person who offered it to me told me that an experienced brazilian grower said, also in a workshop, that when a plastic pot is used one must fill the pot with gravel and top it with sphagnum. When the pot is made of clay the opposite should be done, lower layer of sphagnum topped with gravel.

Another experienced grower (brazilian biologist and orchid enthusiast) uses a layer of styrofoam for drainage, next some small sized gravel, next a layer of sand mized with decayed coco chips or some other organic material followed by a top of medium size gravel.

I was thinking about putting a layer of leca (medium size) for drainage followed by sphagnum and next some small size gravel (got to find it first) or small size leca mixed with small size bark. But I'm not sure about this...

ANother possibility is to use only leca (medium and small) mixed with around 10 to 20% sphagnum+small size bark.

[rbarata]

Done!

At the bottom a layer of medium size LECA followed by a layer of sphagnum.
After that small size LECA mixed with just a little bit of sphagnum and... that's it!
Let's see how it goes!

As it has a new growth and the temps are still above 30ºC/86 F I think I'll keep watering. I got it on an iternational show and the vendor was brazilian so the growing season it's starting there. Hence the new growth...

Here's a photo

[Roberta]

That looks good. The only thing that I do a little differently with the rupiculous Laelias is to put a thin layer of potting soil (1 to 1.5 cm or so) above the sphagnum layer, and then top it off with inorganic (LECA is fine, I use small gravel) This mimics the natural environment of organic matter down in the cracks of the rocks. But this should be fine.

[rbarata]

I thought about that, Roberta, but I forgot it.
Maybe I could put a small amount on the top hoping that the watering pushes it down...or maybe it's better to be quiet and don't do a thing.
I believe these require low fertilization so, although better with the organic material, the lack of it won't make it worse.