What is you favourite potting mix for paphs?
 

I have been doing some extensive readin on what to plant out my paph seedlings into. Sphag around here seems to go mouldy so I've already crossed that off the list. Right now I am thinking a mixture of coconut coir chips, perlite, vermiculite and charcoal. I have been reading about rinsing the coconut coir with epsom salts and oyster shells prior to use to get the calcium balance right in it as apparently this can be an issue with coconut chips.

Just wonderig if anyone has any further input on this as I have never dealt with paphs before. Also can I ask what sort of size the crushed oyster shell that people talk about is? I have not seen anywhere i could purchase this here but i can easily get old dead oyster shells from off the rocks near our place and crush them myself or I can get the kind of shell grit you give to chooks but wasn't sure whether that was as good?

Hi
I use Coconut Husk for all my Orchids exept 2 Catts-there in moss.So far so good.( its been 3 years)
I buy the crushed Oyster Shells in a Pet Store-They sell it for Birds.

We can buy 'shell grit' for birds but it doesn't really specify what's in it. There are shells but also small rough rocks, etc. I don't know what the properties of this generic grit is compared to oyster shells which to me seem a little bit more porous when crushed, the grit is grey and rather waxy in texture, not flaky like oyster shell. I wonder whether the calcium in the oyster shell would be more 'available'...

For Paphs at work we use a fine bark mix It's 4 parts fine bark, 1 part small perlite, and 1 part small charcoal. We top dress all of our Paphs and Phrags with crushed oyster shells. Works great for us!

One of my absolute favorite mixes is 7 parts orchiata bark (fine bark for seedlings), 1 part small/fine volcanic rock (available at Orchid Supplies from rePotme.com - Orchid Mix - Orchid Pots - Orchid Care - Orchid Fertilizer), and 1 part sphagnum. The other mix I use is a potful of medium bark, 2-4 handfuls of charcoal, and a little handful or two of sphagnum.

The oyster shell I use is for poultry, like chickens, and I get it at an animal feed store. There are different kinds of oyster. The crushed oyster shells in the stuff for poultry are from big, thick shelled oysters. So some pieces can look like small rocks or gravel. I use 1/4 a teaspoon oyster shells per inch of pot.

I think I've managed to find an alternative. At my orchid club meeting last night we had a visit from a supplies place and he had a calcium type supplement good for paphs which was made i think he said from crushed limestone. I've bought a box to try out. Unfortunately I've not seen orchiata products anywhere here, infact i haven't been able to buy any decent orchid mixes around here, they all more like potting mix with a few bits of bark thrown in and way too wet for most things. I did soak a block of coconut coir yesterday and it looks like i'd be able to easily take out the big chunks by hand for the seedlings so i'll just do that for now I think. I also managed to find somewhere that is selling live green sphag so that's on the list to get at some stage :)

Here is the bark that I use. It comes from New Zealand and there is an Australian distributor.
Bark Products Taranaki - Distributors

That looks interesting David. I had heard of Pinus radiata before but could never find anywhere that sold it.