Best Orchid Bark - Product Reviews

It's time to repot your orchid and you go to look to see if you have all the materials and guess what

You're missing bark. So you look online to see what kinds of barks are out there

What's the best? What's the cheapest? What holds up? But there are so many kinds

It's daunting, actually. So in this video, I decided to review Better Grow

Miracle Grove, Repot Me, and Orchia. I'm going to be comparing them to mystery brand here, which really doesn't have a brand name at all

So what is the best bark? We're going to find out. So Repot Me is one of the most famous brands

They're also one of the brands who has the most famous brands. who has the most number of variations of potting mix

So, for example, this one is specifically for symbidiums. This one is for phalanopsis

And not only these two, they have 17 other types of potting material in them

So out of all the brands that you have, these have the most variety

I will tell you right up, well, hello, somebody's missed our videos

But this one, which is the Falunopsis Monterey Dark Imperial Orchid Mix

In this one, we're going to have a medium Monterey pine bark, hydroton, New Zealand moss, which is AAA

The quality of this moss is excellent. And it's also going to have large sponge rock, which is this white one right here

Now, Repop Me will have two kinds of brands no matter what type you buy

Like if you're buying for Fallenopsis, they'll have the... imperial and they'll have the classical the difference between these is that the imperial one was

created after the class their quality is excellent you are paying for what you get but they are the

most expensive so if you can see here the bark inside here is smaller and there's not that much spagnumas

i mean you can see you can see you can see right here that there hardly is any sphagnomah. So if you live in a hot and dry climate

don't buy this. Do not buy this because your orchids will dry out too fast. They won't retain

enough water that they need. And their roots are going to turn all brown and crispy on you

If you live in a climate that is extremely humid and cool, this is perfect for your phalanomone

because it's going to evaporate quickly, but your client is already human

So even though it evaporates, it already keeps that moisture inside the pot

So that is perfect for what you want. Please note that the bark chips are smaller

So if you have a huge valenopsis or a cattlia even, this one will probably not hold it as well as the other mix

This one is the dark imperial, but you can buy a gold version

and that will have virgin chips from Portugal in it. And the dark version has chips from Orchiazza pine

which comes directly from New Zealand. So the quality on here is excellent

but the price, I paid the same thing for this as I did for this

And in here you can repot two orchids, about five inch pots

This you can pot a heck of a lot more So take that in place Whoa sorry take that in good consideration Just a note on this if you want to buy repot me I would strongly advise to stay away from

Amazon. And I am an affiliate for Amazon, but the price on Amazon is a lot higher than if you go

straight to the repot me store and buy it there. And I am not affiliated with repot me. And so it's a pretty

big difference in price. I think I paid like $25 for this on Amazon and then I saw the same thing

on the RepotMe direct website for 19. The next brand I'm going to talk about is Orkiada Bart. Now these

come in three different sizes as not size of the bag but size of the bark chips. So make sure that

you're buying which one that you want and I'll list them over here. The three brands are

classic power and power plus and these are going to be the size of the bark chip

There is only bark in these. There is nothing else. There's nothing added to it

There's no sphagnum moss, no purlite, no charcoal, anything like that. It is pure bark

So even though they do have the three sizes, I find those three sizes a little bit too small

So if you're going to buy just on sizes, make sure you upgrade a little bit

But the idea is that the classic is for the seedlings. The power is for the in-between phase, like from two to four years, where they're still not adult orchids

And the power plus is for adult plants, mature plants that already have strong roots in them

Now, orchiazza is excellent for pest control. They treat their New Zealand radiatabark with special treatments to control the bacteria

to control the mold. You will not find bugs in here. You can get it a little bit on the moisture side

depending on how long your supplier has had this on the shelf

Now, moisture isn't really a problem because you can just lay it out in the sun

but you do not have to boil this or soak this actually with the repot me brand before

You also did not have to soak it. It's good to give it a little shift

but both these brands so far do not. have dust in them. They do not have particles that are breaking down. By the way, since I haven't

made a video in quite a long time, it would really help if you like this video or if you commented

or if you shared because YouTube probably thinks I gave up. I didn't. Thank you so much for

everyone who sent an email, a text, Instagram, a Pinterest message. I really appreciate it

If I have not written back to you right again, I probably lost the email in these months that were kind of hectic and I didn't mean to

Let's get on to the next bark. The third brand I'm going to talk about is BetterGrow

Now, BetterGrow has, and listen other brands, please listen, they have a resellable bag

Isn't I mean, awesome. They did that right. I wish cereal would have resellable bags too

Look at this. It's resellable. I mean, look at that. I can close the bag again

Awesome. Just right there, they, I love them. The other thing about BetterGrow is that they have all kinds of stuff included in their orchid bark

So they will have charcoal. They'll have purlite, sphagnum moss. But here's the thing

They have peat moss in here. I do use it for terrariums like in backgrounds because they make an awesome looking background

But for the inside of my orchid pot I don want peat moss Pete Moss is going to turn into a mud cookie brownie type thing and it awful because it doesn absorb well it does absorb water

but it just turns into mud and then there's no airflow, there's no circulation inside that pot

and BetterGrow does use chunky peat moss. There are four types of orchid bark on better

grow as for for kiatta there's just one there's just one that is simple bark

there's one for the phalanopsis which is this one right here there is one

that has an all general orchid potting media that has more items in it which you

can see right here and there's another one for dendrobriums now the one for dendrobriums

is a little harder to find but you can find it still this one is excellent

because of the price. The price, I mean, you can't really be $8 for this. And it does hold up quite well

The cons of this is the dust. There is so much dust in here. You will have to sift it, you'll have to drain it

I recommend soaking it for at least one day for that material can absorb the water. So it will need a little more extra handling if you can put it that way

Miracle Grove. With all due respect, stay away from it. This is super cheap. I think I bought

$5 for this whole bag. This is just the bark. It's the coarse blend and you can find

finer blends. But when I think of coarse blend, I think of thicker chunks that have more

structure to them that have rougher edge on them because they're for bigger rooted orchids, just like

phalanopsis. They're not going to be for your fine little rooted orchids. For that, choose another one

Probably the orchiata would be the best for your finer root orchids

But Miracle Grow just had so much dust in there that it was already

broken down. Awesome. Miracle Grow. Please treat your orchid bark. I mean, how do I say this nice

I have lost count of people saying they open the bag and there's fungus gnats inside the bag

It comes all full of moisture. It comes full with a musky, moldy dirt smell

And I like the smell of earth. This is not the smell of earth

This is a smell of something that has been in a bag for way too long

And it really needs a treatment process. So if you're going, if this is the only thing that you have to repot with, it's not going to kill your orchid, but sift it, boil it, put it out in the sun to dry, spray it down with fizaunt 20 or any fungicide, bactericide, or any other product before you use it. Also, on the website for Miracle Grow, they say they recommend that you repot your orchid every six to 12 months. Why

Does that mean that their potting media only holds up six to 12 months

Is that it's going to break down in six to 12 months? Because no orchid likes to be repotted in six to 12 months

Even pure sphagnomoths can hold the cheap pure sphagnomoths can hold out to a year

Now if you get the more expensive sphagnumas, it can hold out the five years. So why does this break down in six to 12 months

So yes, it's cheaper. Yes, it works. If it's the only thing that your market has, go for it, but treat it

Prepare it put it out in the sun boil it I mean get rid of it And open it outside because it probably come with fungus gnats and I mean customer service on Miracle Grow is excellent I will give them 10 for that They

have answered every single question, but I don't like their answers. I mean, I wish I did

but I really don't. Their answers kind of leave, you know, because they said that mold won't

hurt your orchid. Uh, yeah, it will. So treat it, use it. It, it will break down quicker

so keep that in mind. And to the last one, my mystery mix. I bought this. It doesn't even have

a name brand on it. I don't even know who makes it. I bought it off Amazon. It just said

orchid bark. There was no description whatsoever. It was $8 for this. So it is kind of

It is in a resellable bag. I will give you that. But as soon as I got it, there is so much moisture in here. And that can be a good thing and that can be a bad thing. I mean, moisture means that it was either two things. It was treated recently. It was bagged recently. So that means this is fresh. Or that mold is already growing in here and the bacteria are already providing gas exchange and that gas exchange is creating water droplets. And

and all the rest. Bark size, it is extremely small. It's already starting to break down

You can see a heck of a lot of dust in there. So can you go with these mystery brands

I mean, I wouldn't. Just because the same price of a mystery brand

you can buy Miracle Grow, and if you spend an extra $3, you can buy better growth

It's worth a shot if you want to try. it but I wouldn't I would not repot an orchid that I had that are already expensive and

something that is dubious so stay away from the mystery brands I mean if you are the

owner of this brand I am so sorry but make your bark chips bigger yeah this is is

gonna degrade and hold a lot of water so again if you live in a dry place pick the

smaller bark pieces that's going to hold the moisture a lot longer. And you might be wondering which

one do I use? And I really do not like to give my personal opinions about brands because my growing

conditions are different than yours. I mean, I do have drywall in here and carpet and my air

conditioner is on or my heater is on all year round. So my conditions are extremely dry. They're dry

but I have a heavy hand in watering, so I have to pick something that works with me

but I will tell you one thing. If I just had to go with one brand from here on out

or kiata, it holds up to its name. You do not need to treat it before

It's never, ever come with any kind of mold or bugs or moisture or anything like that

I am not sponsored by them, so you have my honest, opinion here and not that everything else was a lie but this is really honest so orchiata go for it

i do have a link in the description and that yes is an affiliate link because i get an extra cup of coffee

if you actually use that link to go over to amazon if none of these brands are in your area

and you're wondering what you can buy check out this video up here that talks about orchid bark i

I did it sometime in the past, but you will know what to look for in a good bark

And if you want to know what other kinds of potting media to use, look at this video over here

Thank you so much for watching and happy cultivating