When I started collecting orchids I in 1996, bought a D speciosum. It went for the then unheard of price of $50 for a 4 to 5 cane smallish plant. The seller convinced me it was worth it. 4 years later, on Jan 1 2,000, it was trying to burst its pot. As I attempted to repot it I could not get it out. I gave myself a nice cut trying to slice away the old pot. I vowed to never have to repot that SOB again and mounted it on a large root stump. This led to me switching almost my entire collection to mounted plants. No more deteriorating bark, no more mountains of old bark, no more repotting bench, no more worry about over watering. I'm convinced that growing these plants bare root, as they grow in nature, is the easiest and best way to grow them. That D speciosum started me on that journey. It turned out to be a D speciosum var grandiflorum which was not know to me at the time of purchase when I knew nothing about these plants. Grandi is the biggest of them all, this thing now has 32 canes 24"to 26" long with 14" to 16" leaves to boot. Its horizontal wingspan is 5 1/2 feet, its 5 feet tall. I can barely lift it. When it blooms on 14" to 16" flower spikes with 50 to 75 fragrant flowers each, it puts on a spectacular display. The number of spikes varies as it has off years but 2 years ago it had 18 spikes. The beauty of this is that it requires no care other than watering and fertilizing. Can you imagine the hassle of maintaining this thing in a pot with bark? 'Gorgeous George' is a member of the family and it will stay with me for the rest of the trip. If it gets much bigger, they can bury me in it. Every time I take it to a our spring show I get huge offers for it but I'd sooner eat dog food for a month than part with it. Even though I have since acquired named, awarded, famous speciosums like 'Daylight Moon' FCC, 'Windermere' HCC and 'Yondi Tina Goliath' FCC, 'Big G' is the one I would keep. Nick

With regards to fertilizing orchids, my impression is that success is measured more with what you don’t see, than what you do. So a picture that represents proper feeding of an orchid would be far less convincing and instructive than a picture of an orchid that has been over-fed. The variety of approaches that have been employed by various orchid-growers and touted by experts is mind-boggling. But the common thread among the cognoscenti seems to err towards “gently.” In the several decades that I’ve been growing orchids (much of which has been spent with no firm concept of what orchids actually need to support their growth) there seems to have been only one major “breakthrough” which has soared above most other approaches, and which has lasted in its renown to this day. That of course would be the MSU approach of utilizing relatively low phosphorus in its overall balance, together with employing mostly nitrate-sourced nitrogen and avoiding Urea nitrogen altogether. The other guiding concept in fertilizing would be summarized by the recommendation that a steady, consistent and relatively weak fertilizing regime is more supportive to orchids than strong periodic fertilizing. There are several approaches to this process, according to how scientifically-minded one happens to be. One would be to determine optimal PPM nitrogen over a prescribed period of time based on the type of water you happen to be using. The other, simpler approach (after ensuring that your water source is acceptably conducive to orchid-growing to begin with) is to feed weakly weekly at ¼ strength of the monthly recommendation, assuming a 20-20-20 or equivalent formula. Or using that same strength as a constant feed with periodic flushing, depending on genus and its tolerance to added “salts.” For example, I don’t hesitate to constant feed my cattleyas and phalaenopsis with a monthly flushing. But I wouldn’t feed my paphs with that strength more frequently than once a week, so at least one, of not two plain water applications fall between feeding. In addition, good general feeding practice frequently advises pre-watering before applying fertilizer to buffer sensitive roots. Given the application of a ¼ strength solution I feel this is less important for some genera that others. Finally, as some readily available fertilizers are balanced for acid-loving plants, it would be inadvisable to assume that any fertilizer that happens to be on hand would be helpful to orchids. The below link accesses an article on MSU fertilizing and a table that sets out two formulas. It is important to remember that orchids do most of what they do by virture of the light and supportive moisture that they receive. The picture below represents an overfertilized, and arguably over-lit paph from an overly-eager grower, i.e., me. MSU Fertilizer Formulas

Well, I have tried every thing and nothing worked. Not even the recommened mixes from here or bagged ones. Every single orchid I have in my growing warm room has just about lost all their roots. I almost lost them all. So frustrating. So what I did was explain the growing conditions to a few orchid experts at the orchid show and they told me that I have to fine tune and figure out which mix works best for my conditions. That there is no magic mix or bullet or one size fits all. I had to unpot every Phal I have because the roots were drying out just much too fast. I did not have the time to 'soak' every one of them in order for the roots to hydrate properly again, so I tried something not many would use. Just plain ole sphagnum moss. Well, this seems to have done the trick. All I have to do is re wet it and all the roots have time to hydrate, they turn a rich green, and then the mix dries out within a couple of days in that room. I don't pack it tight, but just enough so that the roots are stable in the pot and wow, what a difference!! Now they are growing gang busters. Same with my Oncidiums and Cattaleya in that room. Almost all the roots were dead or dried out and never enough time to mist them every day or soak them as frequently or as long as I'd like to hydrate the roots. So I now use half sphagnum/ half smaller bark, and some perlite. I cut the sphagnum and mix this all together. So far so good. The roots are coming back. It takes me much less time to water or have to hydrate the roots. It will be on to my 'greenhouse' ones since I can only water them in the early a.m. They are in huge bark chunks and the roots get so dry before I can get to them by the next morning. If I miss a day, forget it. I don't have misters that can consistently spray them and keep that greenhouse from getting that hot, but if I find that my mixes of bark and more sphagnum do the trick, I will use that. It seems my orchids require more sphagnum in my mixes to grow to their full potential. Have you had to play around with mixes until you got what works for you? Mike

Hi Mike. I didn't spray any of mine but I gave all of them the bucket of water treatment. I didn't use soap. I wanted to get rid of the ants. I soaked them for an hour or longer submerged in a large bucket of water outside until the ants scrambled to get out. Other than ridding the plants of ants, I didn't do anything else. Jane