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Old 23-04-2004, 03:05 AM
Joe C (free agent acct)
 
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Default Polyrrhiza lindenii/Ghost orchid replate medium

well our only Ghost orchid is mounted on cork bark (nothing holding it
on) and laying horizontal with no media at all, i.e. bare root. We
mist it 2-3 times a day and otherwise keep the humidity quite high
which it loves (rots green). We also fertilize it (via a spray bottle)
about once a week. when we want to really soak it, we lay tissue paper
on top of it and then spray the tissue paper until soaked. the wet
tissue paper is laying on the roots and the roots get thoroughly
soaked. we do this perhaps 30 mins per day (all at once so to speak).
This ghost orchid is growly slowly and has been doing well for the 18
months we have had it.

I recommend you keep it at high humidity, i.e.put in a glass container
and wet tissue paper on hand on sides to drive the humidity up.
It will need fertilizing also to grow- we use Dyna-Grow, Superthrive
and Pro-Tekt (to adjust the pH). Our water quality is very good, i.e.
reverse osmosis with a TDS reading of 1-3 or so.

Hope that helps.

Joe
New Jersey

On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 15:35:55 -0400, "Al" wrote:

A friend of mine just gave me a huge bunch of mother flasks of various
orchids and Polyrrhiza lindenii was among them. It is planted in very
skimpy media just a few mm deep and they are just protocorms with very
little root development. He says it is standard 1/2 strength Phytotech P668
with charcoal. He says this species for him never develop roots and
normally die as protocorms. They are nice plump and deep green at the
moment. A few have roots less than 1/4 inch.

I would very much like to avoid the same fate with these and was wondering
if anybody could tell me if it is the media itself that is the problem or
just the amount of media. I will probably try to replate these onto a
deeper media bed, and probably use a clear/charcoal-less mixture soon but
other than that I am clueless....