would love this stag! check my list, LMK.

I had to laugh about the ants pouring out.... We had a large one at our old house, about 3 feet across and weighed a ton! When we moved a couple of months ago "Seymour" came with us. When we started taking it down from the tree it hung from, out poured the ants! Then when my husband climbed the ladder to disconnect it out flew a bat right into his face!!

Thanks for your comments Bill. I think you're probably right that putting a heavy orchid in the side areas of the fern probably would result in it eventually dropping out. I'm thinking, though, that I have a number of pretty deep "basins" that are more or less on top of large masses in the fern "colony" that an orchid might fit into nicely. Since the whole dense mass takes 2 to 3 large strong guys to move it, I think its got enough heft to support them upright. The stag horn itself is not mounted on anything-- it long ago outgrew anything I could put it on (my whole fence would come down) so it sits on a bed of bark sort of leaning up against the magnolia, but since it's base is about 4' deep, it pretty much stands up by itself. You can still see a tiny corner of the original 1 x 12 board we mounted it on originally, deep down in the back. Ah, yes... the "why?" of the matter. Well, for one thing, I just thought some color would be pretty occasionally in that large dark green area --I had some impatiens balfourii (sometimes known as "poor man's orchid" ;-) ) that shot some seeds in there a few years ago and they were a beautiful surprise to find dancing above the fern fronds the next season. Also, I have a really hard time getting my orchids to re-bloom here in San Diego, except for the ones that I have outside. I never had a problem in SF, but down here my luck is bad with orchids in the house. The outdoor ones re-bloom beautifully, but their leaves are pretty much a raggedy chewed mess, since everything seems to like to munch on them and I thought that if took some of my stubborn indoor guys out and plonked them outside into the stag horn they might a) re-bloom and b) not have their inevitably scroungy leaves look so obvious.

I don't think that you can mount them upside down. Even if it was, any new growth will right itself naturally as it grows. Some staghorn ferns are much easier to distinguish between which side should be facing up. For example, I bought a dwarf Platycerium superbum 'Cabbage' last year. It was still fairly small, but you can clearly see which side should be facing up...But as for the ones typically sold at Wal-Mart, the Platycerium bifurcatum, they're a little more lax on which side should be facing up, because they can send out growth in any direction. I mounted one of these a couple of years ago. It had two main growth points, so I just mounted it with them side by side. Don't worry about damaging the shield fronds because newer ones will emerge and cover the older ones up. Back when I first mounted mine, it didn't have any basal shield fronds whatsoever, but it eventually began to grow some towards the end of the season before I had to bring it back indoors for the winter. Also, when I first mounted it, I removed most of the soil that it was originally grown in. My staghorn seemed to suffer a bit from this, because it would dry out so quickly. But this past year, as new basal shields were growing out, I kind of lifted the tops of them and sprinkled in a bit of cacti and succulent soil. Just so that there would be a little something to hold on to a bit more water, just long enough for my staghorn to soak up what it needs before it dries out again.