large mounts

[keithrs]

I'm looking for ideas for larger size mounts.

[Roly0217]

A friend of mine had big pieces of teak wood that she purchased at one of the nurseries down here. They look beautiful and the roots love it.

[zxyqu]

eBay almost always has a couple larger drift wood pieces. How big are we talking?

[Paul Mc]

You could also go to PetSmart and get either some large cork rounds, large mopani or driftwood, or even use a terrarium background compressed cork piece (those can be really large though).

[Ray]

How large is "large"?

[got ants]

Originally Posted by Roly0217

A friend of mine had big pieces of teak wood that she purchased at one of the nurseries down here. They look beautiful and the roots love it.

How big? I'd love to find some large pieces of teak. I have some about 10" max, but I don't consider those large.

I have, as you can too, large pieces of cork. Some are over 20" long, by 15" wide. All bought from Broward Orchid Supply Home Page .

An other idea would be to use large pieces of rough sawn cedar planks. There is an orchid hobbyist that goes to our local orchid club that grows huge cattleyas on them. When I say huge, I mean like 50-60 flowers on one mount.

[keithrs]

Sorry, I should of specified the plants I'm wanting to mount.

It's hard to say how large. I would guess in the 3 ft. range. I'm wanting some thing naturalistic. I have several large size orchids I want to mount and some seedling that will be big plants.... Three Den. speciosum, C. maxima, C. gaskelliana, C. jenmannii, two L. purpurata, E. brassavolae, and one other C. un-named. I'm sure I will have more soon!!!!

I just mounted a Den. fimbriatum on a cedar fence plank that I cut down to 14". Its 6" wide. I found this to be much cheaper than cedar shingles and looks about the same.

I'm not sure the cedar plank nor the cork would last with the weight that these plants will weight. I'm looking to get a decade of growth out of these mounts. I have one L. anceps mounted on apricot branch and several others mounted on manzanita branches.

[keithrs]

May I'll have to talk to an arborist to get some oak.

I was thinking on leaving one of the speciosums in the clay pot and running SS althread through the drain hole in the middle with a SS plate on the bottom to support the weight. I will have to core more drain holes though the pot and plate though. Just an idea!!!!!

[got ants]

Keith, the cork mounts are surprisingly strong. They are solid one piece and can range from 3' long by 2' wide, and 2" thick. They will last 20 years or more.

[abigaillevans]

Be careful using oak -- that wood rots REALLY quickly if it gets wet.