Soaking orchids potted in bark

[Keysguy]

If my memory serves me correctly, when Orchiata first came on the market one of the touted benefits was they said it did not need to be pre-soaked before use unlike other fir barks.

I use it for a few specific plants and have never pre-soaked it.

[WaterWitchin]

Originally Posted by estación seca

It comes down to time. If you have time to look at and water your plants every day, you can water them as soon as they need it, and it doesn't matter whether you soak the bark or not. I don't have that time.

Yup.

---------- Post added at 05:40 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:34 PM ----------

Interesting KeysGuy. I used it for about ten or so years for everything. But that was a ways back. It’s interesting to hear other folks input, isn’t it? I have not a clue when it came out, nor did I read about it. Just had a buddy who said “buy this” if you want a good bark. Took him at his word and just went forth.

[Ray]

Originally Posted by Keysguy

If my memory serves me correctly, when Orchiata first came on the market one of the touted benefits was they said it did not need to be pre-soaked before use unlike other fir barks.

I use it for a few specific plants and have never pre-soaked it.

I don’t recall that ever being a claimed benefit, and I sold a lot of it in every grade.

My recollection is that it simply didn’t wet as easily as other barks, probably because the surface had not been stripped by the steaming other popular brands did. Once you did get it to wet properly, it was great.

[Grim Tuesday]

Originally Posted by Ray

I don’t recall that ever being a claimed benefit, and I sold a lot of it in every grade.

My recollection is that it simply didn’t wet as easily as other barks, probably because the surface had not been stripped by the steaming other popular brands did. Once you did get it to wet properly, it was great.

I don't know where it originated, but the proprietor behind Quarter Acre Orchids makes that claim on their sales page about orchiatta:

I am starting to really love this stuff... it wets beautifully and stays moist without staying wet.. just what orchids love. And not having to mix it? That's a great thing... I use it right from the bag.. no pre-wetting required.. makes potting a dream!

Edit: I think I found the source:
Claim is also available from their marketers here: Besgrow Orchiata - Orchid bark - YouTube

[Ray]

That’s funny, as it was the folks from Besgro that told me not to soak it!

[Mountaineer370]

I'll offer up my two cents. My house has very low humidity in the winter. I pot only in Orchiata, nothing else added. That means I do have to water frequently, more frequently in the winter than in the summer. I'm now down to about a dozen plants, all of them are on the kitchen/dining table, and the sink is just a few steps away. So my watering method is to hold the pot over the sink and pour water from a watering can over it until I feel like all the bark has gotten somewhat wet (of course I can't see the stuff in the middle). Then I use a spray bottle to wet the aerial roots. I've never soaked a plant.

Specific to the Orchiata. I've been using it since 2015. I've never pre-soaked it. The first few batches I got were very high-quality. For a while, now, though, what I'm getting seems dirty/dusty, and I do end up putting it a colander and rinsing it very thoroughly, until the water running out is clear. I also find the occasional stick or other piece of mystery wood that does not look like Orchiata. Still, the pros outweigh the cons for me and I continue to use it exclusively.

[Dimples]

I have a humidifier that keeps the house 45-55%RH, so I can't say much about growing in low humidity (except occasionally when Santa Annas are in town). Still, I do have my orchids growing in a spot that is hot year-round. In summer, with the air on and in winter from solar heat gain, the indoor daytime high is usually 77-85F / 25-29.4C where the orchids are.

I use straight Kiwi Bark, and I soak my orchids almost every time. Most get a 10-15 min soak a few times a week. Sometimes I'll get busy and forget about them, and they'll soak for an hour or two, but that maybe happens once a month.

If I'm in a rush or watering a hair on the early side of dry, I'll do more of a 10-15 second dip. Long enough so the roots are evenly wetted, but short enough that the bark doesn't have time to soak up and hold more internal water.

Each plant gets its own soaking container, sized so the water will reach the top of the bark. I don't label the containers, so plant A may end up soaking in the same container plant B was in last time, but they're run through the dishwasher after every use. I don't know if the dishwasher is sufficient sanitation for plant viruses, so proceed with caution. Water isn't shared between plants either.

I also prefer to soak my plants so I can reuse the water for outdoor plants. If I ran the tap over the media for each plant, I would use a lot more water. My bark is hard and sheds water in odd ways, making it challenging to ensure the whole pot is watered evenly. I would need a much larger catch basin or would be toting my bucket outside way more often. Soaking my small collection of phals generates less than 4 quarts of water (half a bucket) and reduces the amount of fertilizer water I need to make each week.

If my collection grows to the size where I'll need a greenhouse or moving all the plants to the sink becomes too time-consuming, I will probably rethink soaking, but it works very well for now.

I do flush water through the media a few times a month after a plain water soak to help limit mineral build-up in the bark. Soak to start dissolving any mineral deposits, followed by a run under the tap to flush them from the pot.

[voyager]

Living in a condo in Alaska.
I used to keep as many as 75 or more orchids in my living and other room windows.
I watered them in a tub on the kitchen shelf next to the sink every few days.
Frequency was determined by household humidity and the drying of the pots.
I installed a bathroom tub curtain rod over the sink and shelf.
Enough water, with fertilizer as needed, was in the tub to almost submerge the pots.
Water was added as the level dropped.
The pots were soaked until they has absorbed as much as they could.
Then, the pots were hung from the rod over the tub to drain.
After draining, they were rehung in the windows.
Depending on humidity, they were watered every few days to a week or more, even during very dry low humidity periods.
I did this regularly for close to 10 years, taking care to not do any water damage to my home.

You may begin to understand why I only mount my orchids on trees around the yard, now that I live in Hawaii.
I'm in a humid area where itm rains regularly.
I never water orchids any more.
If they make it, they do, if they don't, they don't.
I've lost very few.

When I potted my orchids, I used my personal concoction, a mixture of pumice, cheap bark and N.Z./Chilean moss.
The mixture was adjusted to work well in a household situation, and offset the bark's degradation caused by the water.
Worked very well for 10 years.

[claypot]

Interesting comments about Orchiata because it is not available any longer in the UK. Our staple these days is bark from Portugal which is hard and keeps open well in the pots. Keeping to the mantra that the objective is never to leave water in the pot after watering I don't see the point in soaking by immersion. In the wild, it rains and water passes over the roots and goes on down to the ground. Passing water through the pot is usually enough to turn the valamen from white to green.

[WaterWitchin]

True for a Phal. And in many places epiphytes live in the wild, it also rains much more often than every few days. I think the original question goes toward husbandry in house, as opposed to in situ. Plus a variety of genus.