Watering mounted orchids is like voting: early and often.

Unlike potted orchids you can't really over-water. Do a combination of spraying and dunking as the mood strikes. Toss them in the pot and stir them around to get the leaves washed at the same time.

I'm guessing that you grow inside? Just remember that the mounts you are receiving will have little or no sphagnum around the roots -- just the orchid and a cork plaque, cedar plank, or grapevine. These do well in a greenhouse environment, but most likely will be challenging for you. Be prepared to make changes to your grow area to accommodate them.

The watering frequency the vendor recommends most likely is how THEY water, which will have little resemblance to how YOU will have to water them to maintain the health of the plant. If you don't have one already, get a good digital thermometer/hygrometer, and that will help you get things dialed-in. Even though they may be easy-"ER" than other mounts, the miniatures you mentioned have less biomass than larger plants and can dessicate a LOT more quickly. Humidity is key to having success with mounts.

Orchids are most enjoyable over the long haul when they only require a minimum amount of care, when your growing area maintains the conditions they need without a lot of fussing on your end. If you have to dunk/spritz daily (or multiple times per day), I guarantee it will get old fast! Plus, you'll fret about them if you have to be away a few hours, or a day or two. ("...is my nephew/niece taking care of them like I told them to?...")

-Bruce C.

You can grow these inside under lights but be prepared to spray at least once a day, possibly twice a day. Even outside, depending on humidity, they will need the same treatment.

I maintained several mounts when I grew under lights but it sure is easier growing them in a g/h.

Brooke

Part of the art to growing and blooming orchids is working out your own set of grow guide-lines. You can read here, books, the net - but what it really comes down to is what works for you. People in your general area may come closer to helping you get things worked out - but even your next door neighbor may do things a little, or a lot different. For example, when you are turning the heat up, they maybe turning it down. They may view a lot of water as a cup, you a gallon. Their plants may be right under an AC vent - yours across the room, or not at all. All factors that matter, but are rarely talked about. It's about reading and getting general ideas, and then getting in there and doing it. There are *a few* hard and fast rules that apply across the board from Alaska to Key West. Some orchids are highly adaptable, some are not. I've killed my share trying to *make* them like my conditions, my climate, and my personal habits. I am willing to adapt and adjust *me* to *them* only up to a point. Over time (and that is important) I've learned my own list of no-nos. I wish you the best of luck in your adventure, but just as Bruce said, be aware that having orchids as a 'job' does get old fast.

I grow in a greenhouse and on sunny/warm days my mounts are soaked "to the bone" from over head sprinklers.

Good luck!
Pat...

I water mine once or twice a day, depending on how dry they feel. I put them under the tap give them a good drenching.

I water mine once a day with the kitchen sink sprayer soaking them and their mounts thoroughly. I even skip a day but VERY infrequently ! I fertilize with a diluted solution in a sprayer once or twice a week during growing or blooming season.

MY OWN ORCHID ENVIRONMENT wasn't enough for the Haraella odorata so I put it in its own "mini greenhouse" made from a large plastic jar ! Its happy now with the increased humidity ! When in doubt, adapt ! Try something new !

{{gwi:182401}}

Good luck with your orchids on a stick !!

Chryss

There is a difference between watering and watering. I hose my bare-root plants off several times a day during hot days. When the roots get dry, think about watering them, sames as potted plants. That takes a minimum of time as I use a gardenhose and spritz them the way you hose off a driveway. Once every 4 days I 'water' them. Different story. I get them wet first, same as above, then thouroghly soak them with fertilizer mixed water. At the same time I check for bugs, weeds etc. This may take me 2 hours as I'm dealing with a large mounted collection. All this is reduced drastically in the winter and on cool moist days. Whatever method you use, the pbulbs should stay nice and plump, same as your potted plants.

When you are retired and enjoy it, its easy, working hard and facing the time demands of a growing young family would make this impossible for a large collection. For a small number of plants, I would have a spray bottle near the plants and spray them every timer I passed by. You cannot overwater them.

Nick

I grow 10-15 small mounties indoors most of the year (have 2-3 hanging in a birch tree currently). I water (heavily mist with a pump sprayer) 1-3 times a day if I can, fertilizing once a week after an initial misting. For me, I water/mist them on the same schedule as my mini-vandaceous plants of which a few are mounties. If I miss a day or only mist once a day occasionally, I don't get too concerned. As the temps in my grow room decline in the fall and spring (less need for forced air AC/Heat which dries things out quickly), less misting is required. I have to mist heavily in the 'dead' of summer and the 'throes' of winter.

Good luck and I totally agree with what everyone has said about not letting them become a PIA. If they don't adapt to my schedules and habits, they usually end up in the compost heap (sometimes my choice, sometimes theirs). Life is short, I don't need a plant causing me too much 'trauma'. After 7+ years of growing 'kids, I am beginning to understand when I am wasting money considering purchasing plants that won't cut it in my environment and using my normal care habits. Sometimes though, you see that one plant that you decide is worth the effort, thus I now grow mini-vandaceous plants indoors in a large aquarium set-up that needs misted regularly, so the mounties just fit in with my care habits.

Chryss FWIW, you might try potting the Haraella in a small clay pot with spagh, I'm having pretty good luck with that set-up and the daily multi-mistings.

Bob

Hi,

I grow a large number of mounted orchids in my 2 spare bedrooms (which have carpeting). I have five 5 gallon buckets (the kind constructions crews use & which can be purchased at Home Depot, Lowe's, etc.). These are for my mounted and vandaceous orchids growing in slatted baskets.

First off, how to tell if the plant needs to be soaked. If it has sphagnum, after soaking, feel the sphagnum. It will feel very cool to the touch. As long as it feels cool it's damp. If the moss feels warm, soak the plant. Cool equals moist, warm equals dry.

When touching to determine dampness, sometimes using your fingers isn't enough. Use the back of your hand, the inner part of your forearm (the portion between your wrist and elbow), your cheek, or even under your chin. These parts of your anatomy are less calloused and more sensitive to cool/warm sensations.

If the plants have no moss at all, you may have to soak them every day. This depends on your growing conditions (heat, light, and air movement).

As to how long you soak the plant and how, this is what I do. I put as many mounted as will fit easily (not crammed) laying in the bucket. The mounts will float so I usually place mine plant down. Leave them for a few minutes. I usually brush my teeth or make the bed between groups of plants (yes, I have that many). I figure mine soak for about 5 minutes before I take them out, let them drain, and place them back in their spots (with trays beneath to catch excess drips).

I've discovered a lot more successes with mounted than potted as I have a tendency to either severely overwater or underwater. I hope this helps somewhat.

Good luck,

Penelope

I really think Pcan's post is excellent advice to all new growers. Put simply and very true. You will learn as you grow...

Jane

I liked what 'westoh' had to say about not letting them cause you tauma and not letting them rule your life. We all have to go through phases. I used to have a warm and a cool greenhouse with automatic humidifyers 1,000 watt HD light cruising on a rail and God knows what else. If you want to grow Bulbos in our Winter which goes down to freezing and Dracs in the 100F Summer you do indeed need that. I had different watering and fertilizing shedules for different group of plants. They ruled my life.

5 years ago I had a health problem and moved at the same time. Both mentally and physically I was not able or willing to recreate the old setup. I made the decision to grow under shade cloth only, gave or traded away the plants which could not survive under such conditions (Bulbos, Dracs, Phalies etc) and put the rest on notice that from now on it's 'Swimm or Sink'. In the first year or two, I lost a number and gave away some unhappy plants but amazimngly most did quite well.

The way it works now is that I DICTATE THE ROUTINE, NOT THE PLANTS! If a plant does not like it, it goes to a happier place. By virtue of natural selection, every one of the plants I have today is thrilled with my routine and is doing well. I know enough about the 500,000 different orchids that are available to us (35.000 species and innumerable number of hybrids) to buy or trade for only the ones which will like my environment And since that gives me a choice of so many, I don't feel limited at all. Life is good.

I do look back with nostalgia on the time I grew all the weird species, but I wake up in the morning, look upon the Earth and 'it is also good'. How far you are willing to go to accomodate the special needs of plants depends on the stage of evolution you, as a grower, have arrived at.

Nick

Well, you've received answers from (I think) zones 4-5 through 9-10. We don't know where you live, or whether you grow indoors, outside, in a greenhouse, or some unholy combination of these.
A lot depends on the above factors. I grow almost everything mounted; I live in south Louisiana, so if the humidity gets below 80% people rave about the "dry air." I have never soaked or misted (I have Gastrochilum, Angraceum and Haraella on grapewood mounts), but I do hose everything off if it is extremely hot (Feb->December) and windy, if it doesn't rain.
I've heard experienced growers say that you cannot overwater, but you can water too often. This means when you get the plant and mount wet, make sure it is saturated, then let it dry out. I think using a bucket for sequentially soaking mounts is a very bad idea, but a really excellent way to spread fungal infections. Dump and change water in between!
If I were watering in the house, I think I'd put the plant in the sink and use a gentle spray for a few minutes, then wait awhile, and repeat until I was sure the plant was well hydrated.
Then I would move south.
Regards - Nancy

Nick, i agree 100%. Unless you have a small collection having all these different culture rules for this and that ends up being a nightmare.

I do have some orchids on mounts but if the enclosure where they are growing is being watered once a week, that is what they get.

But i guess, buying all these strange orchids and seeing what will happen is one of the great joys when you first start out.

Certainly that is what happened many many years ago when i bought a lot of 10 mounted Tolumnia Hybrids. Now i have about 400 of them and my warm glasshouse is set-up for them. Other guest orchids have to put up with the conditions in that glasshouse or find another home.

Good luck Chopster with your mounts, you may find the Genera that you truly love.

Wow! What a lot of responses, and what a range!

I live in Iowa. Right now humidity is no problem, but come winter it will be another story. I live in a small spot in the country where I grow my orchids in two eastern windows with nicely recessed sills and on two five foot shelves, each of which is lit by four four-foot HO T8 bulbs that I really had to search for. Their output is pretty extraordinary for T8 flourescents. The shelves have humidity trays and there are humidity trays with plants on shelves abutting the window sills, too. No greenhouse --yet, LOL! (Though this terrarium concept is sounding quite interesting.)

Anyway, the mounts I am planning to purchase are low and medium light plants that should do well in the eastern windows. (Chryss leaves me thinking the Haraella oderata may be a little more difficult than I had first imagined and I may not get it.) I'm busy preparing the sills, lining the sides with plastic so I can spray with impunity and securing chains hanging from the top to the bottom at the left and right sides of each of the sills. I will attach the mounts running vertically up these chains. Each side of the two window sills gets a different amount of light (funny how the sun never seems to really rise exactly in the east, isn't it?) and I can separate lower and medium light plants on the chains accordingly.

Right now I have no trouble getting about 60% humidity without taking any measures at all except the nearby trays. My plan, based on all your great advice, is to bathe the mounts 2-3 times a week (once a week with fertilizer) and "mist" heavily twice a day. If that doesn't seem to be enough, I'll go to daily baths as Ross suggests. I won't really have that many to begin with, so that shouldn't be a problem if it becomes necessary. I admit I have "the fever" but I haven't quite re-outfitted my whole place around my orchids--yet.

Thanks so much for such a wealth of info!

Charlie

Forget humidity and spraying. In Iowa the air humidity will be far too low most of the time for either of these two methods to be useful, especially if you are also heating, which in Iowa I guess you will be about 8 months of the year. Dunk these plants twice or three times a week - less in winter with some species - in a bucket of water with a bit of liquid fertilizer added, more in summer than in winter. Make sure they are fully submerged and leave them for at least an hour. A tropical thunderstorm can last all afternoon. Good luck!

Chopster,
Sorry, I wasn't trying to scare you off of Haraella ! I tried to emphasize that in MY environment with MY schedule it wasn't getting the right ammount of moisture.

BTW Bob, I'm not retired so I don't have the time to spray or mist more than once a day ! Haraella is a happy camper and since moving into his own g/h has grown more leaves than he had when I got him ! Hasn't bloomed in there yet but that beats watching as he blasted three of his single blooms BEFORE going in there !!

Nancy had a point there about sharing dunking buckets ! It's also a good way to expand your bug collection from one plant to another before you even know that they're there !! Amazing to learn that a lot of them can run and hold their breath under water !! Or just float and grab the next available plant to climb onto ! Definitely not a great idea unless done singly with fresh water !

I want both you, and Bob, to see my Haraella out of his (her ?) g/h jar !

Haraella odorata
{{gwi:187414}}
The moss it's mounted on sprang into life in the g/h jar !
Good luck and enjoy your mounts !

Chryss

Chryss,

Nice plant...

As I recall, I received my Haraella in a 2" plastic pot with fine bark. Struggled for @ 1 year, grew a few leaves but never flowered. Moved it to a mount and put it in my new aquarium set-up with 2/65W CFLs, it did OK with a few new leaves and blooms, but it didn't flourish. After another 6 months or so, I moved it to a 2" clay pot with spagh and put it back in my tank. It gets a real watering 2x a week, and gets the residual mist from others in the tank.

BTW: I'm not retired (I wish!!!, another 10-12 years maybe, but that's getting longer every day with the current stock market and such), I work at least 45 hours a week, but I do go home for lunch on most days. I mist at 6:00am'ish, noon'ish and 5:00pm'ish when possible. My lights run from 5:45am to 8:45pm, so things have time to dry after the 5:00 misting. My misting routine takes me about 5-10 minutes for each per pass, I was usually in the 'kid room 'messing' around that long at those times anyhow.

Bob

I have a mounted Dendrobium Chrysotoxum I bought last year from Andy's, I dunk it twice a day this time of year. She's putting out a nice new cane right now! I feed it once a week.

Hey TommyR !! Me too !! Got mine at the 2007 GNYOS show from Andy's also !! I water once a day and feed once or twice a week. She's got 2 new growths and I just started putting her outside with some others.

Den. chrysotoxum
{{gwi:187416}}

outside my house
{{gwi:187418}}
green arrow is Den. chrysotoxum
lavender is Den. antennatum
red is Neostylis Lou Sneary 'Lynette'
blue is Den. cruemenatum
under the white are my mini Cyms and a Bc. Maikai original division

Chryss (see why I HAD to have a CHRYS-otoxum !)

Hi, Charlie,

Good question. So many times, terms aren't defined.

If you get these mounted plants, you've still got options, if they don't suit your style.

I love lots of the plants people seem to sell mostly - or only - mounted, the Haraella being one. It bloomed fine, hanging out with other mounties in one of the clear glass vases, about 8"x 8" each, with stones and a bit of water in the bottom.

It's the one on the left:

{{gwi:187420}}

However, it was one of almost 20 mounties that needed misting/soaking daily. If I weren't such an underwaterer, it'd be multiple times: They're always dry 24 hours later, inside or outside, unless it's raining or super humid and cloudy out.

When the mounties are in the house, most are taken from vases and sprayed over a big pot, one at a time, then put back. The mounties that don't fit in a big vase are taken to the shower, sprayed, left to drip for awhile, and then taken back to the orchid room.

Outside, each is moved and watered separately.

Every.Single.Day ... whether I'm tired, down with a bug, out late, have a sick pet, family member in the hospital, buddy in a jam.

With the potted orchids, I can close the shades, turn off the lights, and leave them for at least 7 days, if need be.

I started resenting the mounties.

One of the old hands who used to post here said no orchid had to be mounted. Dunno if they were excluding the Ghost, but I've unmounted almost all the mounties now, including the Haraella, Aerangis fastuosa, Aerangis biloba, Dendrobium ceraula, Dinema polybulbon, Encyclia bracteata, Leptotes bicolor, Ornithocephalus bicornis, Phal. lowii, and Phal. parishii.

Others, the grower unmounted and potted before I brought them home.

Almost all the Sedireas I've seen were potted.

As many mounties as possible have gone into sphag & plastic because they dry more slowly; 2nd preference is bark w/ sphag; last is straight bark.

The plants in straight bark have to be watered every other day. It's a relief to be free of the every-day-or-else demands.

It's been a month since the Haraella went from mounted to potted in sphag. It could be too soon to know if it'll be okay, but it didn't lose either of the 2 flowers, and buds on all 3 spikes are still developing.

You'll figure out what works for you - the orchids will teach you. :)

Whitecat8