Using Orchid bark for mulch

[Twistedbrowneyes]

Hey all, I just went down to my local garden center to pick up a few items but they didn't have mulch in anything smaller than dump truck quantities. The guy recommended I use Orchid bark as an alternative. Obviously, though I'm sure he knew, I couldn't ask him if that would be bad for my MJ plant. I put a small layer of nothing but Orchid bark on the bottom of my planter, then mixed in a small handful of the stuff along with half a cup of garden lime pellets and about 3 cups of perlite. I also sprayed in some of my nutes on the bottom half of the soil in my planter, thinking it would be primed for when the roots reach down there. Now I'm going to leave the planter out and set for about a week before I transplant, maybe longer depending on my plant, which is just now blooming its second set of leaves.

Does anyone have experience with the Orchid bark? Anything I should change in my soil prep?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Twistedbrowneyes]

bump. Some help here would really be appreciated...

 

[smppro]

Ok, i have some orchid bark, i dont use it, it seems like it would hold a lot of moisture, i dont think i would put it on the bottom, it might make it harder for the soil to dry out. You want something to drain at the bottom without holding a lot of water. Perlite or lava rock or nothing at all will work. I dont put anything on the bottom of mine.
If you can try to find the pullverized lime, the pellets are clay pelletes rolled in lime, you your getting a lot og clay and not much lime. What kind of soil are you using, size pots, indoor or out door.

 

[Twistedbrowneyes]

Ok, i have some orchid bark, i dont use it, it seems like it would hold a lot of moisture, i dont think i would put it on the bottom, it might make it harder for the soil to dry out. You want something to drain at the bottom without holding a lot of water. Perlite or lava rock or nothing at all will work. I dont put anything on the bottom of mine.
If you can try to find the pullverized lime, the pellets are clay pelletes rolled in lime, you your getting a lot og clay and not much lime. What kind of soil are you using, size pots, indoor or out door.

It does seem like a soft material, I figured the gaps in between would let excess water drip through, but of course you make perfect sense.

The lime I got is Organic Traditions Garden Lime, it doesn't state having any clay content but that's no guarantee.

Using a small pot (maybe 2 gallon), my soil is some local brand "organic" soil, supplemented with perlite, a small handful of the orchid bark (which I don't think will cause a lot of harm since it's a really small amount) and a couple of squirts of miracle-gro 24-8-16 into the bottom portion of soil. This is a small closet grow using CFL's.

 

[smppro]

Yeah that the same stuff i started off with but if you look over in the lawn fert section at lowes theres like a 40lb bag of pulverized for like $5. If you are going to use miracle grow then use at 1/2 strength, lots of people burn their plants with that stuff, i would use schultz over that if you are tying to stay local.

 

[Twistedbrowneyes]

Our Home Depot's have squat in the way of gardening supplies. If I can't find a replacement for the lime maybe I'll put some of this stuff in a soak and use the water instead of the pellets themselves. I also put some of the Orchid bark into a glass jar, sitting in water to see what the absorption rate is like. I figure if it's somewhat dry inside after a 24 hour soak I'll be fine with a bit of the stuff in the soil mix and on top for moisture retention. My biggest concern was really toxicity. Thanks for the advice, giving you +rep.

 

[jawbrodt]

Sounds like the mix should work pretty good, so I'm just going to warn against using too much of the MG fert. It's tempting to think you are 'super-charging' the soil by adding food for the plants, but also easy to add too much, which is worse than having too little. It's strong stuff so use sparingly, you can always add more later. It's a better idea to add with your watering, so it gets distributed evenly throughout the soil.

 

[smppro]

Cool man, good luck, i think you will be fine. If you end up not liking the bark you can find clay pebbles at petco or petsmart, just a little tip if you are interested.

 

[tea tree]

what you do is use an orchid mix and orchid food which is hydro food and ebb and flow whenver that stuff dries out. Like it is a hydroton and rockwool mix. Orchids are soiless. Fast growth. Hook it all up from lowes for 50 bucks. Lol. Man I am high. Anyway, get a 2x3 cement tray, 10$, a 27 gal black and yellow tote, 12$, and a pump from eBay for 20 bucks and you got an ebb table. You would be so stoked! GL. At the bottom of pots people put bark when they want it to stay wet longer. Like potted house plants when they are lazy. I used rocks to help drainage.

 

[Twistedbrowneyes]

Hey thanks to both of you for the tips. I took the orchid bark out of the bottom of my pot and most of it out of my soil. After a 24 hour soak my test material was pretty water logged, though it did let most of the water drain through. I thought better to avoid having the rotting bark concentrated at the bottom of my pot. I'll use some on top like mulch and replace it periodically since I have enough of it lying around. Love the idea for the ebb table, might do that instead of soil mix on my next batch.

I put in a small layer of just perlite at the bottom for drainage. Had to transplant early in the seedling stage, my cup soil wasn't as good a mix as what's in the pot and it was suffering from a combination of being too loose to hold up the seedling and hardening too much. Poor little gal is resting right now. Will check after 3:00 PM when she wakes up to see how she's doing.