Mounting on Ecoweb or Epiweb?
 

Has anyone tried mounting orchids on Ecoweb or Epiweb? It's an artificial treefern type substance. I was wondering how well it works.

I've used Epiweb here in Europe.

It was working well, but the plants I have on it (3 the same) are struggling but I don't believe it's down to the epiweb, but rather lighting and temperature problems.

It seems a bit odd at first, but then the new roots start growing all through the stuff and it seems to settle in well.

I recently put a new Den keiki on it and that has started putting roots through the mesh. That one is working well but it's fairly recent.

I actually want to start combining it with this stuff, made by the same people who make the epiweb in Europe. Hygrolon

Hygrolon holds a lot more moisture, but is not rigid enough for mounting. Someone here on OB was growing on it, can't remember who now. I was wondering about layering Epiweb for the rigidity with this for the moisture retention... but haven't got round to it yet.

Here we are, it was Magnus who was using Hygrolon. http://www.orchidboard.com/community...ppy-roots.html

Not sure if that's available yet in the USA though, so maybe not much help.

I think maybe I wish Epiweb held more moisture, but otherwise it's a good mount.

Thank you, Rosie. You gave me some very helpful information.

Hi Jeff

I have grown on Epiweb® for about 7 years in my orchid cabinet. I am now experimenting with gluing Hygrolon® onto Epiweb® to start growing more species from the Pleurothallis alliance.

My experience from the latest version of Epiweb. Have seen a significant development in Ecoweb over the last years.

- It is an airy material! That make it dry up very fast in dry conditions.
- It holds suprisingly large amount of water as droplet in the 3D mesh.
- If you have high humidity it dries very slow (Water droplets evaporate slow in high humidity).
- It does not break down.
- UV stable.
- Protect the roots as it is stiff.
- Can be hard to cutwithout proper tools.
- When you would like to divide a plant you just cut the mount into 2. Alot of negative argument against Epiweb® is that you can´t get the roots out when you need to replant/divide. But seriusly, you damage the roots extensivly in any material when you clean them from old degraded substrate. You do not need to do that with Epiweb® as it does not degrade.
- I use fishing line to sew my orchids to the Epiweb®.
- Pieces hook into each other, and mounts can easy be elongated by using melting glue.

But the best is that Epiweb® DOES NOT degrade, you can have it for 10th of year without problem!

/Magnus

Thank you for all the good information, Mangus. I agree that it's almost impossible to remove a plant from any kind of mount. I've been using tree fern fiber. The orchids love it but, here in South Florida, it doesn't last very long. Cork seems to be a good solution but it's too dry for some of my plants. I think I'll give one of these synthetic products a try. Thanks.

Jeff
You can use a pruning shears to cut the material and "soften up" the edges if you want something "softer". You can also take some nice moss and rub it into the surface and it will grow and cover the mount if you water it and have it in a high humidity environment.
If you have trouble with degrading tree fern this is a good product to test.
/M

Tucker;

I got a sheet of Ray's EcoWeb about 6 months ago to try. I mounted a piece of a Masdivallia I've had for a while to try as a test.

It hardly holds any water at all and what little clings to the fibres evapourates almost immediately. I added some living moss I got from some other orchid pots to help retain moisture and give it a more natural look and the moss dries within about half an hour. I've since moved it into a nursery flat with a humidity dome and the moss is starting to grow although the Masdie isn't doing anything.

Unless you want to try something mounted that likes it dry, you'll deffinately need a terrarium setup.

Cheers.
Jim

That's good to know, Jim. I thought it was supposed to hold some moisture. I'll need to rethink my strategy. I have some pieces of cork that look great and last for a long time. I was thinking about changing to Ecoweb because I thought it would stay wet longer. But if it doesn't then I can stay with the cork. I might try one plant to see what happens. Thanks for posting your experience.

Epiweb® Do hold MUCH more water than a cork slab and therefore it dries up slower than a corkslab, under the same condition.

There is no magic as it is the relative humidity, in combination with air movement that make water evaporate.

When an orchid is establisk in epiweb, the roots inside the material helps holding the water as the slab becomes less "airy". I suggest that you try one or two plants on the material and evaluate it under your condition.

/M

I'm not an expert but have tried epiweb.
this is only my opinion-I have come to the conclusion that :
-Yes it lasts 'for ever'
- Yes It needs to be watered much more frequently than bark or other types of mounts-pots.
Whenever, I ever... :cloud9: .. get my terrariums/orchid 'houses' equipped with a sprinkling system for watering I would definitely use an epiweb like material for mounting.
Interesting subject thanks for bringing this up

My experience is that this stuff dries out fairly fast in windowsill and outdoor culture, in part from the open structure that unlike solid mounts allows air to flow through, on balance not necessarily a bad thing. In drying speed I'd put it between treefern and cork, probably slightly closer to cork in my conditions. Physically it reminds me more of osmunda than treefern in its flexibility and compressibility, and one of my favorite uses so far is chunks/cubes in potting mixes. Larger pieces of it can be folded/rolled and bound or quilted tighter with strong fishing line or flexible wire; when layered/compressed the structure is less open and water retention improves. I've done some layered composites with tighter-woven plastic meshes (scotch-brite pads) that hold more water, and even just attaching a cedar shake to the back of an ecoweb mount to restrict airflow seems to improve water retention. On balance I'd say it's a versatile material that's nice to have as an option, but it doesn't really work as a standalone substitute for tree fern.

Thanks Mangus. Epiweb is hard to get here but I ordered some Ecoweb from Ray and I'll try some plants on it. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for all your help.

You might want to read the Orchid Karma blog entry about the issues that led her to stop using EpiWeb.

Cool vivarium 2.0 « Orchid Karma :: An orchid blog

So what I gather from Karma's blog was that it was hard to cut, and roots grew into-and through it so well, that she couldn't move individual plants around for photography or medical care. The former is a nuisance, but easily overcome; the latter can occur with any mounting material.

Had she lined the viv with plants on individual pieces, rather than covering the walls with large, single ones, and attaching the plants, that would have been averted, as well.

I have several vandaceous x neo crosses, tolumnias, catts and oncids mounted on EcoWeb, and they are all doing very well. I also have plants in wooden-, or EcoWeb baskets containing EcoWeb cubes, and in plastic pots containing the cubes.

I have to sacond Ray on this one.

Orchidkarma complains about that the orchid roots grow to good and the material is hard to cut.

Her problem with fungus originates from bad climate controll and the lining of each epiweb piece with a water holding fiber cloth.

It is clear for me that her automated climate system failed and it is easier to blame a product than yourself.

She can not defend herself. But I can not see, if you are not doing something wrong, that a material that most people complain is to dry can cause a disease outbreak that need a to wet environment...


/M

Tucker I have been using Epiweb for about 5 years now and it works well in my environment. I usually place a pad of NZ moss on it under the plant before mounting.

More recently I have been experimenting with Roof Ridge Vent material, which is very similar to Epiweb and seems to perform exactly the same. It comes in a roll 11 1/2" wide and 20' long. Here it is approx. $4.20 and linear foot. It is a tad thinner, but just as sturdy as Epiweb. I cut both with my Dremel!

I am much more happy with the results from Hygrolon than Epiweb. I know you can use both together but i stopped using epiweb altogether to be honest.

I sew together hygrolon to form tubes and they are wrapped around PVC tubing approx 15-20cm long and 4cm diameter. They are closed off at the bottom with a glued lid and the inside of the tube functions as water reservoir.

The great thing is that the plants can grow on this tube for years and grow all around it, if the tube becomes too small for the plant i can cut the thread and enlarge the mount by using a larger diameter and length tube and sewing extra hygrolon to the existing piece to form a new, larger tube.

The tube water reservoir works great also, at this moment i fill them about once a week but i am pretty sure once i have my growing conditions dialed in better and raise my humidity they will last like 2 weeks.

Another great property is the fact that the material stays uniformly DAMP, not wet, but damp, and my oxyglossum plants absolutely thrive on it.

I planted out about 20 seedlings from 6 different oxyglossum species and all are thriving, 100% succes rate after 2 months, all have put out new roots and growth. I have a D.subuliferum seedling that is wrapping new roots all around the tube i have put it on.

I did a bunch of seedlings 1.5 year ago in traditional medium and the succesrate was about 40%, i had tons of molding issues and medium breakdown or staying too wet.

When these seedlings in hygrolon are larger i can move them from the compot into their own pots and i dont have to worry about the old medium. Also unlike epiweb, should they get tangled up and growing into eachother the thin layer open structure is easy to cut and i could free the roots with minimal effort.

Very happy after 2 months.

The only issue i notice at this point is i water with a extremely diluted fertiliser solution, but when the hygrolon does dry up you can see the mineral build up. It seems much harder to rinse off the miniral build up from this cloth than other materials. I hope it does not become an issue.

Hi Jeff, are you able to post some pics of how you have seedlings and the tube set up please?

Agreed, photos please. Also, it looks like you are in Canada - might I ask where you got your hygrolon? I've been wanting to try it but there doesn't appear to be any US dealers.

Me too, I'd love to see a pic of your tubes Jeff! It sounds like you made something that works in a similar fashion to swampsticks.
Did you find the hygrolon in the Netherlands? I know where to find Epiweb, but not this one.

Camille the people who produce Epiweb in Sweden make this as well. The UK dealer has started selling it as well. It might be worth asking you Epiweb supplier if they can get hold of it as it comes from the same place as the Epiweb.

Good idea, I didn't think of that!

Jeff, this sounds like a great idea. How does the water get out to the hygrolon? Do you drill small holes in the tube? If so, how small and where are they?

There is a small strip of hygrolon on the inside of the tube attached to the outer hygrolon acting as a wick.
I find the tubes last about a week.

I am experimenting with other methods because i noticed if you use a reservoir below the tubes that wicks water up it stays more evenly moist over time. As the tube depletes it wicks less and less water.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8192/8...77d2230373.jpg
Dendrobium subuliferum seedling by Oxyglossums, on Flickr

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8336/8...95da1c860e.jpg
Dendrobium subuliferum by Oxyglossums, on Flickr

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8193/8...d332431667.jpg
Sophronitis alagoensis by Oxyglossums, on Flickr

Tucker, how's the Ecoweb working for you?

I've discovered that as Magnus was saying earlier, the amount of water it holds depends on the water droplet size. Since I moved my plants inside, I've had to use a 1.5 quart misting/spray bottle instead of using the hose as I did outside this summer. With the bottle spraying a finer mist, the Ecoweb holds a ton more water than a spray from the garden hose. The Masdie that was growing so slowly before; I can almost watch it grow now. And the mosses are just taking off. I wish I would have done this earlier this summer and not wasted a couple of months of growth.

This past weekend, I tried a division of Sophronitis cernua that was putting on it's second flush of growth and transplanted an Angreacum didieri x Agraecum mahavavense cross where the old stick mount rotted away. It also is putting on new growth so it was a good time to try.

Cheers.
Jim

I, too, am curious how its going.

In considering redesigning my terrarium by using This material wrapped around a pipe along with some molding material to create an branch effect, placing the bottom in a reservoir of water to be wicked up. Any thoughts on this?

It doesn't wick. You'd need to design a system that wets it from above, so it flows downward.

Oops! That's good to know! Thanks ray! Guess its back to the drawing board for me the , lol...

Ray, after doing more research, I found several websites and instructional PDFs , one that had given me the original idea to work with. They do say wicking is needed, but their websites are in the UK. What do we have in the US that would provide the wicking?

Paul;

On another thread on mounts someone used candle wick to provide the necessary wicking to grow mosses on a mount. I'll try and fine the thread.

Other option is to order some Hygrolon from Dart Frogs in the UK. Last time I checked, they will ship to the US.
EpiWeb - A Better Xaxim!

Cheers.
Jim

Thanks for that thought! I had just started wondering about using candle wick myself.

Hey Paul;

If you're still looking for Hygrolon, someone forwarded a new site here in the US that just started to carry it.

Folius

Cheers.
Jim

I would say that a candle wick is a bad choice as it is usually cotton and will detoriate very fast!

As always Magnus, thanks for your insight!

Curious about hygrolon myself, but if you want a cheaper option for wicking fabric you might try polyester craft felt. I've started using it in a few plant settings, if I remember I'll report back when I see results one way or another.

Epitubes with Hygrolon
 

I have been using Hygrolon for about 5 months now and this is how I use it to make a mount. I take PVC irrigation pipe of varying diameters and wrap around twice with material leaving enough material on each end to stuff several inches down on both ends of PVC pipe, this works to tighten up material and as a water holding area that will wick. then I tie a hook on one end and they are ready for mounting with fishing line .

So far this has worked great for me both inside and out.

Pipe over 1" in diameter I wrap twice with material and used hot glue to secure material. I also used an end cap on bottom of PVC and drilled holes several inches above cap and cut material to run thru drill holes into water and around tube to act as a wick for material wrapped around tube.

both ways work but the first way is better because it does not stay to wet.