Oncidium Sherry Baby grown in soil?
 

So I am finally repotting this big Oncidium Sherry Baby, which has bloomed once and is bursting out of the pot.

The strange thing is, it seems like it was grown in soil! I thought it was in sphagnum, because it has some on the surface.

I suppose it is possible that it has been grown in orchid bark which has completely broken down.

Is there any chance this should be grown in soil? As I understand that only terrestrial orchids can be grown in anything like soil.

Should I just repot into Orchiata?

:thanx:

I bought an oncidium hybrid and it also came is what was either very broken down bark or some type of peat-ish material (but not peat). I repotted it into small bark and it did great until I accidentally started under-watering it. It still bloomed for me this year.

Thanks for this! While I was waiting for a reply, I googled my question.

I read that this Orchid likes a bit of sphagnum mixed in with the bark chips. Would this be smart, considering the risk of under-watering which you mentioned

They don't like to dry out completely. If you grow it outside in summer I would use fine or small bark.

That depends. My issue was with the bark I used. It holds a good amount of water but dried much faster than I thought.

It could be broken down bark, but there is also a coconut based product called Coir. It looks a lot like soil but it is a legitimate option for growing epiphytes.

Cool, I did not know that!

There's also a New Zealand tree-fern product Amazon.com (it is also sold for reptile environments... different packaging same stuff). I have tried it out on some of the things that have been growing in baskets in sphagnum, like Pleurothallids and Dendrobiums, and so far have been really liking their response. I haven't been doing it for long enough to say for certain (like about 6 months so far) but it's very promising as a sphagnum replacement. Stays moist but drains well, "recovers" from drying out better than hard-to-rewet sphagnum. It is supposedly sustainably farmed.