Osmunda Mount
 

I'm fortunate to work at a nursery that specializes in water and woodland gardens, which gives me access to lots of nice plant material, in addition to winter greenhouse space. Anyway while doing a bit of cleaning up, I came across a pot that had once contained a fairly large native Cinnamon Fern which must have died in our drought this past spring. That's Osmunda cinnamoneum for you binomial nomenclature fans. As I dumped out the pot, I noticed a large chunk that didn't crumble like the rest of the soil. When I saw the dark fibers a light bulb went on and I washed away the soil to find a fist sized clump of osmunda. I have a Dendrobium loddigesii that produces keikis prodigiously, so I clipped a cane full of keikis and mounted it to the pad. Two weeks later and I'm definitely seeing new growth.

It grows well for me, but hasn't bloomed despite the dry bright winters it gets. I have a couple in different places including one I started in s/h last week. If it takes you can have it.

The mount looks good!

I have a Den. primulinum x loddigesii I got from Carter & Holmes this summer, mounted on tree fern. The current cane was still in growth when it arrived. I've been spraying the mount or dunking the whole thing in a bucket of rain at least twice a day, and it's growing well. I got a piece of old cane to root by tying it to the mount with a little sphagnum over it.

Osmunda mounts
 

Hello, this is my first post. I am new to orchids but have been a gardener for 40 years. Since I have a huge amount of old osmunda ferns with large root systems, I harvest a few dozen ferns and I am trying to use this medium for most of my orchids.
A few days ago, I mounted a Bc. Mami akatsuka “volcano queen” and a Pot. Sanyo Butterfly “Parkside” on course osmunda clumps. Perhaps, I am biased but the transplant seems to grow about 3 mm of fresh shiny roots after 4 days. I will post photos once I figure out how to. I tied 4-5 big clumps of osmunda chunks (8-10 inches tall) together then mounted the orchids on top of it. I will update in a few months or when they bloom.
The next few weeks, I will mount oncidium, phals, catts and others on osmunda clumps.

Welcome to the Orchid Board!

If you can find decent osmunda, it's as close to a "perfect" orchid substrate as there is. It's airy, holds moisture without getting soppy (orient the strands vertically), and releases nitrogen slowly as it decomposes.

It's Osmunda cinnamomea, by the way.

Good osmunda hasn't been wildly available for decades, because it is slow-growing, and the bogs have been depleted from a commercial perspective. "Farmer" - kudos to you if you are trying again, but be very wary of wild collecting the stuff, as there may be laws against that, not to mention the ire of folks who support conservation.

I recall the days of buying it in large pieces - 6" x 9" was some of the smaller stuff I usually got in a box. Those were great for mounting, and any smaller pieces that broke off in handling (but nothing less than about 1"x1"x3" sticks) were used to pot up plants.

One of the keys in that was soaking the osmunda to make it a bit more supple (it's tough when dry), the compressing it tightly against the pot wall, holding it that way with the plant in your hand, then compressing more around the rest of the pot wall, so that when you released it, it "clamped" the plant in place.

Folks:
another member of our orchid society brought a Catt to a meeting basketed with osmunda fiber. He had dug it up on his own woodlot property, washed it in the brook and used it for various plants. That Catt loved its badket and was glorious. I've tried doing the same, and it appears to work very well. I have a piece of swampland so I dig up dead ferns for the root base. (Also get my own sphag.) If you have your own property or permission to harvest, OK. Otherwise, no digging or cutting.

Anyway, about the D. lodggessii, I grow mine mounted on a piece of "driftwood" from a freshwater brook (not saltwater) and it is a vigorous grower. High bright light nearly all day, and very dry, cool/cold in the winter. I think I see some buds...it has bloomed before.

One of our OS members (who is now no longer with us) said that blooming may be dependent on having a good clone. Not all clones/seedling are as floriferous. He encouraged growers who had not seen blooming - or scantly blooming - on a plant to replace it with a better clone.

Well, that's enough from me ; -)

happy growing to all,
Maryanne