Mark this date for Basket culture.

[Rick]

I was inspired by John M's parrishii story, so I got a bunch of wooden baskets and re-potted.

I moved a parrishii into a basket with moss/chunky peat/large perlite about a week or two ago and it's holding up fine so far.

Today:
a supardii
a couple of sanderianums (one with and without good roots)
a rothchildianum
a stonei
a faerianum (with bad roots)
a gratrixianum (an originally rootless division that had developed awesome roots in moss)
a gigantifolium
a small lowii
a small phili
a druryii (in poor shape)
a insigne
a wilhelminea
a kolopakingii

The base of the mix for each of these is sphagnum, but there is a variety of other stuff depending on how I felt as I went. Limestone gravel, sand, perlite, clay balls. Lowii, parrishii, and insigne are generally epiphytic anyway, and shouldn't have problems in a high moss mix.

As you can see, most of these are multi's that generally do fine for me as long as I massively under pot. You may remember the 24" multigrowth stonei in a 2" pot (recently re-potted to a 4" pot). I generally over water, which is great for the basket and mounted plants, but gives me fits with lots of the potted stuff.

I'm hopping to get more stable and larger root mass. Also since I'm not good about regular re potting, basket culture in general goes much longer without maintenance, and all I really need to do is just slip the old basket into a larger one and keep going.

Also with the new taller GH I have a lot more room to hang stuff and get more space on the benches.:evil:

 

[SlipperFan]

Interesting idea, Rick. Keep us informed how it is working out. I'm thinking about hanging my multi-florals, also -- when my GH is up and running.

 

[John M]

'Wish you the best of luck with them all, Rick. Keep us informed on how they do, please. I've been thinking of hanging up all my long petalled Phrags lately. I think that they could use the extra air movement and light.

 

[NYEric]

Hope you took 'before' photos of the plants and roots!

 

[Rick]

Hope you took 'before' photos of the plants and roots!

No before photos, but all roots are presently well contained in the baskets, so hopefully I'll be able to get some shots with roots coming out all over.:wink:

I was pretty amazed when I took the gratrix out of its pot. It was originally just a 2 or 3 growth division that fell off the mother plant when repotting about a year ago. It had just a few nubby roots at the time, and since I was busy, I wadded some moss around the base and stuck it into a pot sitting in a tray of water (almost constantly filled). I meant to come back and pot it up after a week or so and forgot about it. Instead of rotting it looked pretty good, and when I pulled it out of the pot today it had a lot of big active roots growing in that soggy sphag. So I'm encouraged.

 

[JeanLux]

...
No before photos, but all roots are presently well contained in the baskets, so hopefully I'll be able to get some shots with roots coming out all over.:wink:

...

but maybe 1 or 2 pics to illustrate your repotting !? Jean

(I had a similar idea when seeing John's thread but could not yet decide for my parishii)

 

[cliokchi]

hi rick,

another one that grown on trees in Thailand and as high as 75 ft up
is Paph. villosum.
good luck with your experiment
cliokchi

 

[SlipperFan]

'Wish you the best of luck with them all, Rick. Keep us informed on how they do, please. I've been thinking of hanging up all my long petalled Phrags lately. I think that they could use the extra air movement and light.

Hmmm, I hadn't thought of that. That's a good idea -- might help a lot with the rot factor.

 

[John M]

Exactly, Dot. I find that the long petalled Phrags are more prone to Erwinia....and I know that they are a bit crowded on the bench. The big mature plants would be in a 6" or 7" pot (or larger); so, they wouldn't dry out too quickly. Plus, I go up and down the aisles each day and spot water and mist everything. Plus, if they dried out more because of haning up, I figure it'd be okay anyway because they are decended from drier growing species. Also, since I don't exhibit, I don't need to stake the flowers. Hanging will allow the long petals to really show themselves off. Right now, the long petals dangle down into the leaves and amongst the pots on the bench, where it's hard to really appreciate them!

 

[Rick]

Hmmm, I hadn't thought of that. That's a good idea -- might help a lot with the rot factor.

Yet another reason that could help with erwinia is that basket culture could (should) keep the root ball cooler (more evaporative cooling) which at least in my GH the rot tends to go hand in hand with higher temps.

 

[SlipperFan]

All good things to keep in mind. Thanks, guys.

 

[Rick]

Here's a pic of a few.

Jean I didn't think it was going to be worthwhile posting a bunch of "before" pics, but I noticed (mostly from looking at dirt marks on leaves) that some of those I originally potted are already showing some growth (just a little). So's here's a pic. Excluding the bulbo on the far left (which I just found a spike on), from front to back, left to right is:
parrsihii, sanderianum (one of the seedlings I got from Leo a couple years ago),insigne
supardii, randsii (forgot on my list earlier), gratrixianum
in the back is armeniacum (mostly in CHC not moss), but sending stolons all over.



Most are in 6" baskets. The randsii and gratrixianum are in 4" baskets so far.

 

[SlipperFan]

I wonder if clay pots word work similarly, to keep the root ball cooler and allow good drainage.

 

[Rick]

I wonder if clay pots word work similarly, to keep the root ball cooler and allow good drainage.

At least for the way I water, they haven't worked out well form me for slippers, but I've had good luck with Catts and a few other things in clay w/moss. I'm also not thrilled with clay because its hard to get things in and out of them without something breaking. There's not much to beat a basket for drainage. Typically to get the same effect in clay, you would add a bunch of Styrofoam peanuts or chunky rocks to get lots of drainage in a clay pot.

 

[SlipperFan]

I like clay pots for vandaceous, most dendrobiums, catt family and cycnoches -- with diatomite or coco-fiber. I've not tried them with slippers. I'm not wild about sphaghnum as a potting medium. But I do like to experiment.

 

[JeanLux]

Jean I didn't think it was going to be worthwhile posting a bunch of "before" pics, but I noticed (mostly from looking at dirt marks on leaves) that some of those I originally potted are already showing some growth (just a little). So's here's a pic. Excluding the bulbo on the far left (which I just found a spike on), from front to back, left to right is:
parrsihii, sanderianum (one of the seedlings I got from Leo a couple years ago),insigne
supardii, randsii (forgot on my list earlier), gratrixianum
in the back is armeniacum (mostly in CHC not moss), but sending stolons all over.
..Most are in 6" baskets. The randsii and gratrixianum are in 4" baskets so far.

Thanks Rick, I am going to give it a try too !!! Jean

 

[Rick]

Over the last week or so I've added:

both adductums
2 more kolos
3 more sandies
a mastersianum seedling
a couple of purpuratums
an emersonii
a phrag lindenii
a venustum seedling
a tigrinum

So far nothing has died or started to look bad. Most are showing some small amount of growth (even with the short cloudy days and cool temps).

 

[John M]

Very interesting, Rick. Thanks for the update and please let us know down the road how this works out.

 

[Rick]

Updates

Here's some updates. Some new roots of one of the first sandies to go into the system.



The roots on this venustum seedling are also going to town, but what got me was the width and color of the new leaf (on left) compared to the old leaf.

 

[SlipperFan]

Looking good!