Amey--Part of my annoyance with the bigbox bark I've been using is that it is still full of resins (tannins?). I think I could use the water I soak it in as a fabric dye or wood stain. So I will definitely soak my souvenir bark, but do you mean compost it as in try to get it to break down like people do with grass clippings and vegetable scraps? I'm a little afraid to just leave it in a damp heap outside as we are in the depths of earwig season.

Don--most of the bigwig internet supplier orchid fir bark is douglas. The way a lot of them advertise, it seems like they are just resellers for Rexius which is douglas fir that is put through some sort of heat treatment. I know I need some bark in my mixes as I'm a little too heavy handed with the water to do straight CHC (and I'm not ready to switch all the way to SH). So I think if I can get it treated properly, my new bark should be just as good as everything else in my price range.

Can I just keep soaking til I get to an appropriate ph? I remembered reading this about mounts here. There was a discussion of a combo ph/TDS meter. (Ugg. I feel myself wading deep into scientific concepts again :headexplodes: )

When I first started searching for mounts, I remember seeing some type of bark that had been stabilized with plaster in the back. Some of these pieces are quite cool looking, but seem fairly fragile and might be hard to hang and will probably break down too quickly.