My first mount mini phal attempt. Thoughts?..
 

Hey guys so I have this mini phal I got for valentines day and it finally gave off all of it's blooms but one. So I decided I wanted to possibly mount it. But I have no tools and all the materials? All I had was some sphagnum moss, a piece of elastic gold string from the gift the orchid came in. Anyways this morning I took my dog for a walk and fortunately I live near many creeks and I found to be a big piece of bark from a tree. Perfect! No cost at all. Boiled it and dried it and it looked good enough with no mold. As for the orchid, there were some rotten roots in the Pot but a lot of them which are still good. I used cleaned out the plant, put some moss under the rootball and tied the elastic string around the bark. I am please with the final product. So what do u guys think? Any suggestions to how often to water it? Any successful methods? How long til I see new growth? Thanks guys any suggestions help.
-Josué






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For someone with no tools or materials, you did a bang up job! I like the glitzy gold cord - your phalae' is stylin'! LOL. Very nice....
You don't have a lot of moss around the roots, so I am guessing you will need to spray/heavy mist it daily and once or twice a week you will need to really drench the slab- this varies with household humidity, air flow, exposure, etc.
You should see new growth on the root tips within about 3 weeks or so - as the leaves are harder to judge in growth, I go by the root tips - once they are growing it is usually pretty easy to notice. Root growth would indicate that it has recovered from the trauma of being mounted. If the roots start to shrivel or the leaves become limp, then you may need to water more, but this is kind of a case-by-case scenario and really hard to tell someone how to water due to the above mentioned variables.
Hope that helps some - sorry I couldn't be more specific.
P.S. you will need to fertilize "weekly, weakly"; as there is no media to speak of in order to hold any nutrients, the fertilizing is important for such a mount.

My first mount mini phal attempt. Thoughts?..
 

@stray59
Thank you for your thoughts and response. This helps to confirm plenty of information I have been reading on mounted orchids. I tend to check on my orchids At least 3 times a week so watering won't be an issue and I keep a fan in the ceiling on at all times. Plus I also have a bottle Mister with orchid fertilizer which I will be using once a week.

On the other hand, I mounted another mini phal that I received along with the previous. And here are the results! I cannot wait to see new growth. I'll keep this post updated

-Josue


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Really gorgeous - I like the coloration of the blooms - really nice. Plus, you have picked a really interesting slab to mount it on. Very nice job!!!

They look great. Here's an FYI, those aren't mini Phals, they seem to be standards. Minis are about a quarter of that size.

I mounted a Phal for the first time last summer and its first blooms are just opening after nearly six months of spike growth! My experience has been keep them nice and watered (i spray mine every day and even so, several roots dried out this winter). If you live in a humid area, they will love being hung outside under a tree this summer and getting hosed down every day.

@CambriaWhat
I know this is a silly question but how do I know if I live in an area with good humidity? Overall what is a good humidity level for orchids? I probably will buy a humidity thermometer just so I can know what levels I have here.


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Ideally, humidity should be above 50 percent. Most people that do mounts have greenhouses, live down south in humid areas, pick plants that can take drier conditions, or go with some sort of orchidarium/terrarium.

Most of my mounts are either drier tolerant plants like Neofinetias, in my orchid case, or are misted/fertilised twice a day. The orchid case is for my high humidity plants like Pleurothallids and the humidity is always 70-100 percent.

You can get cheap temp/humidity meters at places like Ace hardware, Lowes, HD for around $15-$20.

Cheers.
Jim

I'm addicted to mini phals! I also think they're great for experimenting because the box store ones are fairly cheap, and small. Mine cost $9 each :)
They're helping learn how to repot, which in turn helps me repot my other orchids better.

As long as you don't neglect them too much, they bounce back with proper care.

ETA: I buy my humidity and temp monitors from amazon. Exo-terra, or zilla? It's around $8-$11 depending on stock. I also got one digital one, which I don't recommend putting in very humid setups.