Problem with new growths

[RSJ]

What do you do with the "notorious climbers" as far as potting goes? Since they need lots of moisture I would think that mounting them wouldn't be the way to go but then to make sure the new growth roots get into the medium wouldn't the older growths need to be below top level (and then subject to foliage rots)? And then I would also think these climbing phrags/paphs wouldn't be good candidates for s/h, right?

Ronnie-Sue

[uncasteeb]

Having the new growths climb in s/h isn,t a problem really , i just bury the older growths a bit(completely sometimes).I have Onc,s which have completely buried PB,s & i had to partially bury the first growth on my Phrag
SA so that the latest growth was actually touching the top of the s/h medium.
The buried first growth(about 2" deeper than medium level) has produced a very nice new growth so it doesn,t appear to bother the plants.

[Jmoney]

you end up either having to slope the medium or burying the old growths. the old growths don't seem to be that rot prone, since in nature they get buried with accumulating leaf litter (and hence the adaptive mechanism of climbing). the old growths tend to die off rather quickly though, within a year or two of blooming for the climbers i have at least.

[LJA]

I've done both: buried the old growths (which I think looks terrible) and mounted the plants. The mounting works fine as long as you surround the bases of the growths with enough sphag to keep the root zones moist between waterings.

Frankly, despite their nice blooms, I find climbing Phrags to be one of the more serious pains in the butt....