Mounting Oncidium sphacelatum, a climber, Part 1

[estación seca]

Here is how I made a mount for a 2-bulb segment of Oncidium sphacelatum. It came to me recently from First Ray's.

The specific means "appears dead." I don't have Lindley's original description, but it would be interesting to find out why he chose that name.

I had to break this into parts because only 10 photos may be uploaded per post. This is the first part.



This is the bare-root Oncidium sitting on a Gladstone hardy lily pad which is 10" / 25cm in the small dimension.



This is the mesquite branch I selected from my wood pile. The mattock is a small hand-held one, not one with a long handle. The branch has been outside in mostly shade for over 2 years. Some of the bark is peeling. The large yucca is a juvenile Yucca faxoniana, and the longer-leaved rosette behind it is the octopus agave, Agave vilmoriniana. It isn't visible here but that octopus has a faint variegation.

Mesquite wood is very hard and grows fast. It makes good wood for smoking food, and furniture with a beautiful curved grain. The genus is Prosopis and it's in the bean family.

Native Americans harvested the mature pods. They pounded them in large mortars to separate the pod material from the seeds, then winnowed out the seeds. The powdered pods were cooked and eaten as a porridge. The beans were cooked as any dried bean. Dried pods contain a lot of sugar. They ripen when not much other food is available in the Sonoran Desert. Dried mesquite pods formed the majority of the early summer diet of a lot of animals native here. The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix teaches children and adults this process so we can learn how the people who came before us lived.

You will, no doubt, be surprised to learn the small plant in the foreground, with yellow daisy flowers, has had its name changed a few times. When I bought my house in 1986 it was known as the Dahlberg daisy. Then it was Dyssodia, which is what most people call it. The oh-so-serious native plant society people say it is supposed to be called Thymophylla pentachaeta. No matter the name, it is incredibly drought and heat tolerant. It blooms all year if it gets a little water. It reseeds itself gently in my garden, so during rainy seasons I often have a golden carpet in my desert landscaping. And, it has a very strong medicinal odor. I like it, but Dyssodia means bad-smelling. Some botanists must not have liked it.

The cage is to keep rabbits from eating a small Fouquieria formosa. Our native ocotillo is F. splendens. This species is from farther south in México. It grows more like a small tree than does our ocotillo, which resembles an upside-down cat-o'-9-tails.

Its flowers are a truer red than the orangey-red of the ocotillo.

The shrub with whitish leaves near my truck is Encelia farinosa, another daisy. It drops its leaves during drought, leaving a bunch of dry sticks. When it rains, the shrub leafs out and blooms profusely, with huge clusters of small, brilliant yellow daisies held on long stalks above, and completely obscuring, the foliage. You can see I haven't been a good gardener who dead-heads the old stalks. This plant reseeds wildly in gardens here. It rots if it gets too much water, or if grown in acid medium/water.





I sawed off a reasonable chunk. Things to consider: How big do I want the plant to become, and how big a plant/mount will I be able to lift in 5-10 years?



I drilled a hole through the branch near the intended top. I tore a lot of the bark on the way out. The dried wood was so hard I had to first drill a small pilot hole, then use the larger bit. I also goofed and used a too-large bit for the final hole. I should have used a drill bit slightly larger than twice the diameter of the wire for the hanger.



I scale the wire to mount size.





I put the wire through the hole from back to front. The smaller hole seen on the front view is from a boring beetle. Downed wood here is full of such holes.

I want the hook for hanging behind the mount. The idea is to push the short end of the wire through the hole from back to front; crimp the end of the wire back on itself for about 3/4" / 2cm of doubled wire, which will not pull back through the hole; and yank it tightly into the hole. This will not pull through.



My hole is too large, and the doubled wire will pull right through the hole. I looped the wire around an old bolt so it wouldn't pull through. This will be facing forward, so it will be visible. My thinking is that people looking at another magnificent orchid I grew won't notice the bolt.



The right-handed tin snip I used to cut the wire. The water-pump wrench I used to bend it into the hook shown.

Continued in the second part.

[estación seca]

I had to break this into parts because only 10 photos may be uploaded per post. This is the second part.



Finished with the wood!

The palms across the street are genus Washingtonia. There are two species. Washingtonia filifera is found in desert oases in Arizona, California, and perhaps Utah; also in México. This is the palm found at Palm Springs, California. It is very slow growing, with a stout trunk. It retains its skirt of dead leaves for decades or even centuries.

The Mexican W. robusta is also found in oases, but not the US. It is a very fast-growing palm, with a much more slender trunk than its relative. Its dead leaves blow off the trunk in high winds. There are many old examples of W. robusta in Los Angeles, with trunks well over 120 feet / 50 meters tall.

Both species do well here, tolerating overnight frosts into the low teens F / -10C. They are used extensively in landscaping in Arizona and southern California. They readily hybridize. Because most cultivated plants are grown from seeds produced on cultivated plants, the majority of fan palms sold here are hybrid swarms. The palms in the photo have trunks too narrow to be W. filifera, but too thick to be W. robusta. I think they are hybrids.

Continued in the third of four parts.

[estación seca]

I had to break this into parts because only 10 photos may be uploaded per post. This is the third part.



I use fishing line to mount plants. For the next few photos I will use rope for better visibility. The pencil helps show where the rope crosses itself.



Begin with a large loop. Leave a very long free end, because after tying the plant, you will tie the other end of the line to this free end. I did not leave a very long free end so it would be easier to fit into photos, but I would leave a free end about twice as long as it needs to be for me to tie with the free end.



Make a single simple knot in the end of the line, enclosing the long end of the line.



Cinch the knot tightly around the long end of the line, leaving a slip loop.





The line can be pulled to make the loop small, or the loop can be expanded.



Expand the loop so it fits over the bottom end of your mounting stick. Position the knot on the back of the stick.



Cinch the loop down tightly by pulling on the long, uncut end of the line. There are two ways you can pull. One way tightens the knot, and the other way loosens it. This will be obvious. You want to pull it so it tightens.



Position your plant on the mounting stick. (For clarity there is no plant shown here.) Wrap the long end of the line around the plant and stick as much as necessary to support the plant well.

Don't pull the line so tightly it cuts into the plant.

Some people put a wad of sphagnum between the plant and the stick. Others don't.



When satisfied, cut the long end of the line to make it easier to tie. Cut it very long. Many people find it quite difficult to lengthen a piece of line cut too short.

Tie the recently cut end of the line to the other end. Sometimes, before tying the final knot, I may wish to tighten the line on the mount. I will loop the first cut end under a number of line wraps on the back side of the mount before tying the final knot.

For nylon fishing line, use at least 9 throws for the knot. As with both alcohol and moderation, more is better. Then trim the cut ends.

Continued in the fourth of four parts.

[estación seca]

I had to break this into parts because only 10 photos may be uploaded per post. This is the fourth part.



The finished product.

This is the end of the line, the last of four parts.

When the party's over, Turn out the lights. Turn out the lights.

[Dezzie]

Thanks so much for posting this, very helpful and informative.
Im sure I will be referring back to this post and mounting several orchids in the near future

[AndreaK]

Thanks for the informative identification/historical tutorial included about the background plants in the pictures. Great tutorial on the process of mounting a plant as well!

[estación seca]

Most plant people are interested in most plants.

[Orchid Whisperer]

Troy Meyer's website says "From Latin "sphacelatus" burned, with burned spots."

[cjm3fl]

You'd be surprised how many people have never seen the outdoor plants common to your, and my, area's of the country.

A younger Yucca, right?

[estación seca]

It's a young juvenile that won't be blooming size for some years. It's from west Texas down into Chihuahua. It's one of the tallest and most massive Yuccas. We have the enormous Yucca baccata here at slightly higher elevations, but it grows sideways rather than straight up.

Yuccas branch, for the most part, only after flowering. The spike comes from the apex, and the plant makes new growth from below the spike, a lot like a Phal with a terminal spike.

I'll try to post a photo of my young Yucca rostrata now in bloom. This species spreads west from Texas, and intergrades with our Y. elata, which is a high-altitude grassland species. From Texas south it intergrades with Y. rigida.

Both of my yuccas were salvaged from a west Texas construction site, and brought to Phoenix for sale. I planted them in 2004. Both have approximately doubled in size.