My oncidiums that I had purchased before that will go into s/h when they outgrow their pots. Or sooner if I get bored and want something to do.

Brooke

The only reason that i am growing the plant this way is that it tends to climb. The plant is doing fine.

A couple of other Oncidiums with normal growth habit are in basket pots.

Which Oncidiums do you have?

There seems to be the romance of the mounted orchid in posts on this page that are not borne out by looking at orchids at shows etc. which reinforce my theory that should only mount orchids that grow best that way. Other alternatives are basket pots and shallow pots or trays.

For example, went to an Australian Native Orchid show the other day where every Sarco. hartmannii was in a pot and every S. falcatus was on a mount.

ebbykay I have no idea how big an AV pot would be. Many people make their own s/h containers from deli type containers. I'm guessing here but the height of the containers is probably three times taller than the width.

Brooke

I am only 40 miles away from an area where people can grow orchids without heating or cooling, but as soon as we move away from the Pacific coast, the temperature range expands, so here we get both too hot and too cold, and in addition it rains at the wrong time for cold tolerant plants like Laelia anceps.

But, I do believe I can find another tree trunk that I can try to mount some dends on. I have all my dends mounted on cedar planks right now. Rather, cedar fence boards, that are about 5x14.

Evelyn

A 'Mount' does not have to be a branch or a plank, any object which gives support to the plant and prevents it from falling to the floor satisfies the requirement. Paul Gripp form Santa Barbara Orchid estates is a big fan of 'pot in a pot in a pot in a pot'. He will take a small plant which has outgrown its pot and put it in an empty slightly larger pot, repeating the process as the plant gets bigger. Oncidiums lend themselves perfectly to this method of growing. I have a huge Onc sphacelatum hanging over the edge of an eight inch pot in all directions. Inside there are 3 or 4 smaller pots all totally rootbound but no growth medium of any sort has ever been given to this plant.

I place all Oncidiums inside an empty basket or empty pot small enough to provide a snug home for the existing root ball. If the plant is very small, I give it a little moss. Once the plant is growing well, the size of the pot or basket may be increased as needed. When the plant is spilling over the side I simply drop it into the next larger pot ot basket, no medium is added.

You can mount them on branches but they are very slow to attach and their strength to hold on always seems to be a little less than required. I will place them in branches that have a fork at the point of the mount so the plant has a 'saddle' to sit in. As the plant grows and squeezes into its space, one ends up with a successful mount. A plank from a fence obviously does not lend itself to this application.

The reason I mount Oncidiums even though they might be better off in pots, unless treated like I stated above, is that 95% of my plants are mounted. I water them daily, on hot days more than once. A plant potted in the conventional way would drown in this deluge. I lack the space to have potted plants sit on their own, they have to live under the mounted ones which dominate the scene. Having a plant in a pot full of bark and watering it twice daily is a death sentence.

If you mount Oncidiums in a satisfactory way they grow just fine, at least as good as potted ones. A few years ago I won 'Best Onc of Show' at the East West Orchid Show at the 'New Otani', in LA, a major orchid show, with an intergeneric which filled a 6" basket to the point of overflowing with 17 flower spikes. No medium so technically the plant was mounted. In nature they are growing on branches in trees, there is no reason why that should not work in cultivation.

Nick

Evelyn