Paph in coconut...fiber?

[Mothra79]

I bought my first paph at an orchid show last Saturday. A beautiful Paph. Pleasant Surprise that's blooming as I type this. It's potted in, I think, coconut fiber. It's really dense, almost like soil. When I watered it this morning, the water didn't drain freely through the media like it does with my other orchids potted in bark. Is it okay to have it in a media that's so...soil-like?

[mayres]

Coconut fiber is often referred to as coir. I have used this for all my phals and have used it on a couple paphs that were rootless in order to keep the media moister to stimulate new root growth - successfully I might add. A few people I have heard use this successfully for paphs - in theory it should work well as long as you adjust your watering schedule accordingly. Does it have some perlite mixed in? This might help to aerate the media a bit and keep it from compacting?

[Mothra79]

I don't see any perlite. It looks like straight coir to me. But the vendor at the show had quite a few beautiful, happy looking paphs, so it's safe to assume he's the expert and know what he's doing, right?

[unhappykat]

coir is usually used to help large scale growers with the feequency of watering for most paphs. if you can remember not to water until almost completely dry you will be fine leaving it in the coir, if you think you might forget and water too much you will want to repot into bark or something else more free draining.

[BURR]

Every thing I have is mounted or in Coir/Coconut, outside being rained on most days right now and I have eight Orchids blooming.