Parade of Phalaenopsis

[Cjcorner]

I'm going to try the upside down pot idea, I received 4 catts that have grown out of the current pots, So I will cut off that part and attach to a clay pot...Also what do you think of lava rock vs pine bark for catts??? I have read a mix of opinions in the forums. I am in the Piedmont North Carolina, so my catts can play outside during the summer, but I would be bringing them in for the winter. would have to have a hanging area and lights- thinking out loud- love to receive suggestions!

Lava Rock vs Pine Bark - It depends on the species used for your cattleya. If they like very little water (and I have used the lava rock made for putting around bushes) lava rock works great. However, with my growing conditions I have discovered if I use the cheap huge bags of pine bark normally used as mulch, my roots are bigger and grow like crazy the minute I transfer them into it. I dig out the really big pieces of bark and use them on the bottom and sides of baskets to keep smaller pieces from falling through the slots. As you dig through you can separate it easily into bags marked large, medium and then all the left over stuff at the bottom marked Phals and Oncids only as it will contain some peat like fine materials. If you plan on using this mulch for indoor plants I highly recommend spraying something in a hole of the bag, closing it for a few days and then using so the bugs die. Which since you bring them in every fall, you probably already do a spray before they come in. There are some plants that need more water, so you would want to maybe add stuff to the pine bark. But I even have a phal growing in the stuff. I bought "bulb pans" because I wanted to pot the phals with at most 6 inches of bark to reduce root rot and now need to find more of the bulb pans as they worked far beyond my expectations. I will include a few pictures of some catts and a phal in my bulb pan/basket and pine bark.





You can see I mixed this one with some lava rock chunks.