Phalaenopsis--from spagh to bark

[Chris1140]

Today I unpotted a couple of my Phals in sphag and examined the roots. I was surprised to find that, though there were many older roots in good condition, there were hardly any new roots, especially in the crown area just under the surface of the potting medium where you would expect to see them. There were some air roots, however, buried in the last repotting, which were growing and branching.
I decided to repot everything into bark mix, which for me has given very good results as far as root growth. I left one large plant that seemed to have more root growth in the sphag. I will check it again in 6 months or so.
Time to stock up on more bark mix!

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Phals seem to grow much better for us in bark mix. Good growing Chris.

cheers,
BD

[MattWoelfsen]

Most of my Phals are in bark--but they came that way from the plant vendor. This spring I repotted all of them in bark. I took this a step further and planted my mini-Phals in bark which were in moss. A couple of weeks ago, one of my favorite mini's died--crown rot. I took it out of the pot and looked at the roots, all of the roots were shriveled. I took another mini and I un-potted it. It's roots were also shriveled. So I repotted every mini back into sphagnum moss. Today I was looking at them and found all plants nice and healthy, I peeked in on the root ball to see how the roots were doing, they were nice and green. Whew!

Anecdotally, these plants should not care what they are planted in, but I've come to the conclusion that if a plant is in moss, replant in moss. However, I'm probably not as fastidious as you are in nurturing your plants, so your mileage may vary!

[Chris1140]

I think you're right, sphag works great with minis in very small pots.