My absolute favorite place to purchase Orchids is a Lady by the name of Marni Turkel. New as I am to growing Orchids I ordered a mounted Pleuro niveo-globula from her on ebay because I loved the way it looked. After it arrived I was having problems right away.The plant looked drastically different after the first night. Marni returned my please HELP call right away. She explained in detail what I was doing wrong. She also followed up with the email below:
Hi,
It is New Zealand sphagnum moss that you should use. It will be hard to find a small amount on line, so I am putting an envelope in the mail tomorrow with more than enough to do this plant. Soak the moss in water until if plumps up. Squeeze out most of the moisture so it doesn't drip and then fluff it up. Wrap it around the bottom of the wood mount so it just comes up to the base of the plant where there is already a little pad of moss and set it in a pot. Put in enough more moss around it to fill the pot, but don't stuff it in hard. Just enough to make the mount stand up. You want to keep the air spaces in the moss. Also, don't use a really big pot, 2.25 to 2.5 should be big enough. Don't try to get all of that moss in there.
Good luck,
Marni
Marni Turkel
Santa Rosa, CA 95407
Phone 707-328-5973
Fax 707-579-1116
Stony Point Ceramic Design & Orchids
http://www.marniturkel.com
Sonoma Urn Company
http://www.sonomaurn.com
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After having specific instructions on how to treat the plant until the moss arrived, I only lost one leaf and the bloom the rest of the plant looks great. Today the moss arrived. I have high hopes for the survival of this plant.
