Mounted cattleyas

I was repotting my catts and decided to make it more interesting:



Smaller one on the left is laelia alaorii - miniature cattleya with bell shape flower. O the right - laelia sincorana var. coerulea. I already tried to mount cats on this wood, but it was before tanks and didn't work in too dry house conditions. Hope it works this time.

I think it looks cute.

Mounting George

Over the summer Phal. I-Hsin George has been growing long new leaves that were sort of soft and floppy. Then I noticed that they were so floppy that started to nod down.
I tried to stake it for support but ended up breaking off the whole long and soft leaf.
Luckily the newer leaf already started, so the crown was still alive, but that newer leaf was growing looking down too.
George became a problem to handle because I was constantly worried that I can break off the whole crown.
Finally I decided that if he wants to look down with his new leaves - then I should probably mount him upside down so the newest leaf will just hang there without any risk to be broken.
For a while I couldn't find a suitable and large enough piece of wood, but yesterday at PetSmart I finally came across something that could be it:



Long story short - here is the result:



It is now hanging on the railing against the window and gets a lot of light. I put some sphagnum on the mount over the roots in hopes that it will keep some humidity there.



Here is the look from below. It shows the newest leaf and traces of the broken one(there is brown cinnamon powder collected on the cut). I am guessing that spikes will probably die off because of the change-of-environment shock:



I am not sure if it was a good idea to mount I-Hsin George, just hope it won't kill him.

Laelia alaorii

Laelia alaorii was a travelling companion for my Cattleya schilleriana. It is a small species but it is also a small seedling of the small species which makes it practically microscopic.
It is mounted onto piece of wood:



The wood piece is very small too but of course it looks gigantic comparing to laelia.
Here is the closer look of the plant:



I would rather grow it potted but am afraid to break it when taking off the mount -it looks so fragile.
I really hope it survives and grows a bit so I wouldn't be so scared to handle it.

Mounted catts

A little while ago I mounted two cattleyas and a very small vanda on one large piece of grape wood. It seems they like it.
I had to cover roots with sphagnum moss to keep some humidity around them.
Plants are still alive and I can see several new root tips poking out of the moss.

Catt. jenmanii:



Lc. Love Knot carmela's blue:



Vanda coerulescens seedling:

Mounted some catts

This piece of grape wood might look familiar. I tried to mount several mini phals on it last winter.
Well, it didn't work out, plants didn't look happy, I freaked out and took them off.

This time I decided to put some cattleyas on it. From left to right they are: Lc. Love Knot Carmelas Blue, vanda coerulescens seedling and Catt. jenmanii:



Roots are white because they didn't see the light being potted into clay pots with chc. I guess they will become green at some point maybe. View from the other side:



I am going to spray the roots twice a day. Not sure if I should put some moss to cover roots or not?
Cattleya jenmanii:



Lc. Love Knot Carmelas Blue:



Both catts should be quite small in size. I put vanda in between them so the middle wouldn't be empty.
Hope they all will grow nicely together.

Mounted mini phals

Here is yet one more mounting I just created. This log of a driftwood came from the pet store too. I put several small mini-phals and one haraella baby on it. There are 4 plants in total on the mount, from left to rght they are: Phalaenopsis gibbosa seedling, Phalaenopsis parishii seedling, small seedling of Haraella retrocalla and last but not least - blooming sized Phalaenopsis lobbii with two spikes.
I put small dab of sphagnum moss under each plant. Hopefully they will be ok. I killed one Phal lobbii potted into sphagnum, this one I decided to mount.



Small Haraella retrocalla baby came off the large one when I potted it on arrival. I will label it Haraella retrocalla II.

Phalaenopsis cornu-cervi mounted

I had this Phalaenopsis cornu-cervi for several months. It came with two spikes but not active. I have potted it into sphagnum moss as all my phals and waited for the blooms. Nothing happened.
I tried lower temps, higher light, higher humidity with no success at all. Finally I decided to look into moss and discovered that none of the roots had fresh growing point, but all started to rot. After trimming rotted parts I decided to mount my phal cornucervi onto one of the grapewood pieces from the pet store.



Wood has a hole through, so it can be hanged.

The roots don't look all that good:



Hope they will improve on the mount.

Another mounting on clay pot

Picking on the roots of my newly purchased Phalaenopsis mannii, I noticed that in just a couple weeks I managed to rot a lot of its roots. Maybe they were cracked to begin with, I don't know.
Now there are only three roots left, they have traces of rot and don't look all that healthy.
In my attempt to save them I decided to mount this phal onto clay pot just the same way I mounted Haraella retrocalla.
Here is what came out of it:



Back view, notice how bad the roots are:



When and if the roots will start to look healthy - I will pot it up again.