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The Perfect Bark for Orchids (Tips to Choose the Right One)
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Oct 3, 2024
Orchid Bark as a Potting Media One commonly used potting media for orchids is tree bark. With its low cost and easy accessibility, bark—fir bark, more specifically—is one of the most used potting media, only losing rank to leca pebbles. Whether Fir bark, Douglas bark, or Pine bark, it doesn’t really matter when it comes to orchids. The only bark I recommend staying away from is Redwood bark. It’s not that common now anyway, since a vast majority of the redwood has sadly been depleted from the landscape…and because it contains toxins that can be harmful to household pets. All other kinds of bark inside the potting medium are widely accepted. If you want the full explanation of this video in writing, go to https://orchideria.com/orchid-bark/ On Orchideria.com, you can find more in-depth guides and all the access to our information, tutorials, guides, and much more... all for free! Happy Cultivating! HASHTAGS: #orchidcare #orchid #Orchideria #AmandaMatthews SOCIAL MEDIA:
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In today's video, I'm going to talk about orchid bark and why it's such a great potting
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media for your orchids and how to choose a good grayed bark for your orchid
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Hi, I'm Amanda Matthews and thank you for watching this video at Orchidaria, where you learn to
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cultivate orchids and craft terrarians. So in this video, I'm going to talk about orchid bark as a potting media. And orchid bark is just
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Another word for tree bark. It really doesn't matter what tree it came from as long as it's not redwood
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And you'll only want to stay away from redwood because of the toxins that it has
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It can be harmful to household pets. And if you breathe that bark, it can cause respiratory problems in the long run
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So just stay away from redwood and all other barks that you will find inside a potting media are good
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Now if you're mounting your orchid on bark, that's a whole other video that I'm not going to go into detail here
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There you have to have special kinds of bark because some will rot faster, some do not, some the roots do not cling to as much
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So as in potting media, all tree bark is fine. As in mounting, there are specifications
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For the orchid potting media that you'll use inside a pot, the orchid bark will come in three grades
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which is fine, intermediate, and coarse. The fine grade is smoother. It will not have a more coarse aspect to it
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and the roots do not cling to it as much. So you'll want to use fine grade for seedlings
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for small-rooted orchids that can get their roots easily around that. If you have a small..
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I'm going to use this rock as an example. If you have a very fine root and it's trying to attach itself all the way around this, it's not going to make it
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You want a very very fine obstacle that the root can wrap around and maintain that firmness maintain that stability inside the pot Now if you have bigger roots like a cattlia then you want a coarse grade
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most of the time are bigger chunks. Even though it might have a few splinters and it's rough around the edges
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those thick roots can get around there and attach to something that's bigger and stronger
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because after all, the purpose of orchid bark is to, to provide stability inside that pot
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One of the things that fine grade bark does, it holds water longer
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So when you water, think about it like this. If you have point A and point B
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how long does it take from point A to point B if it's a straight line, not long
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Now imagine if there's all these obstacles in the middle of your potting media
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that's the fine grade bark. So your water is going to start here
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and it's going to have to traverse or travel through all that different graded media, which is very tiny. It takes a longer time to exit the pot
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So even though the orchid bark does absorb water, it's not that fine grade absorbs more
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It's just that it takes a longer time to exit the pot. Since there is a higher surface area of orchid bark, that orchid bark will absorb some of the water
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So you want fine grade bark for orchids that love high humidity
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And this can be dendrobiums, vandas, telminias, and onsidians. A coarser grade bark would need a longer drying out period because the water is going to hit
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but it doesn't have that many obstacles to get to exit the pot
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So the water is going to get in the pot. It's going to exit quickly
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so it's going to dry out quicker and the surface area is actually less
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So these orchids that would prefer a coarser grade bark would be cymbidiums
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miltonians, miltonioopsis, pathopelums, and phalanopsis. Now pathopetulums can be in both groups And you have those intermediate grade that are neither water nor dry quick orchids We love that fresh gush of water but we also want to dry out quick
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So they'll get both aspects of that. So in this intermediate grade, you'll probably want to keep your cattlias, some onsythiums, odontoglossums, some cattlia
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Then depending on the cattli, you might want a coarser grade, onsidiums and odontaglossums
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One thing you'll want to make sure of when you're using orchid bark is that bark does have a tendency to hog all the oxygen and the nitrogen
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When you are fertilizing, make sure you do use one that is a higher nitrogen because the orchid bark is going to pull that nitrogen and deplete it from the roots
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So you'll want to keep that a little higher if you're using just orchid bark
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One thing with all orchid barks, please, please, wash the bark before you use it. Do not get the bark and just put it straight in your pot. If you do that, your bark is going to release all this dust and that dust is just going to make the water exit a lot harder. It's going to kind of like clog the drain. So really wash that orchid bark out first. Give it a good soak. So
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it gets rid of all that dust that's inside the bag that it's been in for a while
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A very common ingredient with orchid bark is sphagnum moss. They're such a great pair because orchid bark is not going to absorb the water and it's going
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to drain fast. And spagnum moss on the other hand is going to absorb the water and drain slow
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So you put them together and they get that perfect mix of also stability and drainage and light
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and air and everything I said in the other video, which I'll put up here. So those things
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orchid bark and sphagnum moss together make an excellent potting media. If you want to use just
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orchid bark feel free But just remember you have to water more independent of the grade of bark If there no sphagnum moss in there you have to water more And it will degrade a little bit faster Orchabart after all is organic and it is going to degrade
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Sometimes orchid bark is hard to find and you'll want to substitute things like mulch
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Moulch is completely different and it is made to degrade. That's the whole purpose of mulch
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Mouche is made to use in winter and prepare the soil for the spring growth
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So it's going to want to degrade. It's going to want to keep its form first and over time it's going to degrade
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Also, mulch interacts with fertilizer a little bit different. So just stay away from mulch
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Unless you want to repot every six months, which I do not recommend
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So stay away from mulch and just keep to the orchid bark. When you're repotting with orchid bark, remember it is mobile inside the pot without the orchids
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So you'll want to put a little layer of bark and then always tap it on the table to make sure that settles
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to make sure the smaller pieces fall in place. If you don't do that and then you move your pot to water it, when you move your pot, it's going to jiggle inside, it's going
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to wiggle the roots. It damages the roots. So always make sure you use that bark, you tap it to make
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sure it settles and then keep adding more bark all the way to the top. So add that bottom layer
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of bark. Put your orchid in and then start putting bark around the roots and always tapping it
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shaking it, giving it a good squeeze to make sure your bark settles and is tight but not suffocating
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inside your orchid pot. Another common ingredient to use with orchid bark is charcoal and you can
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watch that video up here. If you want an overview of these six things that you need to provide
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for your potting media, look at this video down here. Thank you so much for watching. And if you
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can, give it a likes or a thumbs up and happy cultivating
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