Cardboard sowing?

[MichiganFairies]

I have a bunch of native michigan orchid seeds and a bucket of cardboard strips drenched in hose water and drained from a few days ago. I am genuinely confused on how to do this. I also have a mix of peat and pool sand and a lot of dead and living sphagnum moss. I also have a lot of small empty pots, do I need something bigger? I kinda need some step-by-step on how to do this.

[Subrosa]

If you're doing this in pots you'll need some way to provide greenhouse conditions for them. I normally use disposable food containers with clear lids that seal tightly, but no reason pots won't work. For bog orchids I use a mix of about equal parts peat and sand with a bit of substrate from local orchid colonies. For woodland orchids I use a mix of about equal parts sand, compost/leaf litter and peat, again with a small amount of natural substrate. Due to local conditions I'm working with mostly acid loving species, but if your seed is collected in areas with more neutral or alkaline conditions, adding some limestone to the mix will likely be beneficial. I add in a small amount of oyster shell chicken grit for lime lovers, but regular garden lime is fine. The nice thing about the grit is that it looks identical to perlite, and I add just enough to get the look of store-bought potting soil that contains perlite. A healthy pinch of lime in a quart of substrate would work as well. My containers are low and wide, so I cut the cardboard strips so the fit comfortably on edge in my container with the top on. In regular pots I would try 2 different methods as an experiment, since I've never tried using them. Some I would insert the strips vertically in the pot and then fill with substrate to a normal level, leaving a bit of the end of each strip exposed. For a 4" pot I would think that half a dozen 1" wide strips would do it. Other pots I would fill most of the way with substrate and then
coil the strip on edge in the upper part of the pot, again leaving the top edge slightly above the substrate. At that point you can sow immediately or let the pots incubate in greenhouse conditions until you're ready to sow. After sowing I give the seed about 8 weeks of cool, dark conditions. A fridge will work. After cold stratification I bring the containers out into normal room temperature and give them 12 hours of indirect lighting. Intensity isn't necessary at this point, even for full sun lovers, you just want to trick the seeds into thinking it's spring and time to wake up. This pic is a typical protocorm, which is what you're wanting to see. Once the protocorms develop a green leaf, you'll want to light them appropriately for their species, but take a couple weeks to acclimate sun lovers to the extremely bright conditions they grow in.