Helena in basket culture

[Bjorn]

An older orchid grower that I know once told me that many years ago a lot of people were growing with oak leaves mixed into their substrate. He told me that back then a lot of people were having issues with snails as the collected oak leaves from the forest floor tended to have snail eggs on them.

That may of course happen unless you sterilise. Personally I take twigs and small branches of the trees and thereby avoid that posibility.
The helenaes may vary quite a lot in size as this photograph shows.The one between the other two is indees something like half the size of the two others

While the normals are something like 5cm that one was just approx 3. A very tiny one.. PS the ruler is actually touching the flower.

 

[Eric Muehlbauer]

Back when I used to add crushed oak leaves to my bark mix, I'd always bake it in the oven first to sterilize it.