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Name: Gina Florida (Zone 9a) Tropical plant collector 35 years     Gina1960 Mar 4, 2020 6:44 PM CST |
| So this is a plant I have wanted for a while. Anthurium friedrichsthalii. Its a true epiphyte, and is one of the true pendant anthuriums. It grows at elevations of between 800-2400 ft in tropical moist-premontane wet forest in Guatemala and Colombia. It is known by its very narrow leaves, and can sometimes be confused with A. bakeri and A. gracile. In situ, this plant will often be seen just hanging out by a root or 2 on a rock face or a tree. The plant frequently hangs straight down, what we would consider upside down. Pretty cool huh? Google it and see for yourself! I got this plant a week or so ago when my friend made a trip down to one of our fave nurseries near Orlando and brought it back for me. I love this nursery, BUT I hate their potting media. Its too heavy and too dense, and I always have to repot everything I get from them within a week. And they pot everything in this mix....epiphytes and terrestrials alike. I have to be very careful to try not to overwater them before I can get them switched to a better substrate. This is the method for mounting a small epiphytic Anthurium. It can also be used for a truly epiphytic philodendron, or an orchid. The method is the same. For larger plants, you have to be more creative. The alternative to mounting something like this is to just place it in a wood slat orchid basket with a little long fiber sphagnum moss. After it attaches itself well, you can turn the basket whichever orientation you want. But I like this more natural look. This is my plant. It came to me as a juvenile in a 4" container  Looking at it, I see immediately one leaf has a brown tip. A clue that it is getting too much wetness about the root system and not drying out fast enough. I just take a scissor and nip that off  I don't need a huge mount for this. So I choose a smallish piece of cork bark. I make a hole and insert a hanger BEFORE I mount the plant (believe me its easier that way). The only other things I need are some pre-soaked long fiber sphagnum moss and something to wrap it on with. I use monofilament. Don't use natural jute. It will rot long before your plant gets established. Use a synthetic that will not rot  The first step is to take a small pad of moss and wrap it on. Tie a loop of monofilament tightly around the plaque first, and leave a 'tail' maybe 8-10" long. Then lay on the moss and wrap it on, and secure by tying off with the tail, leaving the spool attached.  Set this aside, and unpot your plant.   You can see how dense this media is. And wow...none even falls off! Its kind of like a brick. The roots look ok...on the surface. But when you shake some of this media off...you start to see dead roots    These are healthy roots  So you want to remove the deaders. They will only cause problems. Use a sharp cutting tool and isolate them one by one and snip them off as close to the base of the plant as you can. When you are left with only healthy fat white roots, you can proceed. Pick up your mount, and arrange the roots in a fan onto the mount. Remember to put whatever plant you are mounting in its correct orientation. This one is going leaves DOWN. Hold the plant gently to the mount and try to get all the roots on the top with none hanging over.   This is the tricky part....I do this a lot so its not hard for me. But you may need a second pair of hands if you aren't sure. Holding the roots to the mount, take some more damp moss and spread a thin layer evenly over the roots to cover them completely. This is important, because when you wrap the line over the roots, the moss keeps it from damaging them. You need to wrap firmly, but not TOO tightly. You don;t want to cut through anything. Once you think its secure to the mount, cut the line and tie off to the tail, use several knots. It should look like this  The you can select the spot where you want it to live. And hang it there 2 questions you may be asking....why didn't I clean more dirt off the roots? Because a little clinging on won;t hurt anything, and doing something drastic like washing the soil off the roots could severely damage them And why did I use moss, when these grow in the wild without it? Because having the moss pad helps to drastically increase the humidity around the roots. The moss dries fairly quickly in the greenhouse after being watered, because air movement out there is high. And I can touch the moss every day and know immediately if the plant needs watering. Moss is a necessity if growing as a houseplant. So get to it...go out and mount a plant! Other candidates for this....Scindapsus mounts up GREAT. Anthurium veitchii if small. Anthurium spectabile ditto. Anthurium gracile or bakeri. Anthurium vittarifolium. And lots more. Award winning beaded art at ceinwin.deviantart.com! |
Name: Adrienne Ohio (Zone 6b)  Adriennevs Mar 5, 2020 2:29 PM CST |
| I've been wanting to do this with a plant. I'm not sure what plant to use because I don't have any of the ones you mentioned. Well, I do have a scindapsis that could be a candidate. Also, I need to find somewhere to buy cork bark. Where do you get yours? If I do hang the scindapsis, what orientation would that need? I know it wouldn't be upside down, right  That's pretty crazy that yours hangs upside down though! |
Name: Gina Florida (Zone 9a) Tropical plant collector 35 years Gina1960 Mar 5, 2020 2:55 PM CST |
Scindapsus will climb anything. Its best to start out big, because they will climb until there is no totem left. I have one on a fence post (8 ft tall) that I covered with coir fiber. You can just lean it against the wall. Award winning beaded art at ceinwin.deviantart.com! |
Denver, Co GreenBee01 Mar 5, 2020 3:44 PM CST |
| Thanks for the tutorial I may have to give this a try. We'll have to locate the cork bark. |
Name: Gina Florida (Zone 9a) Tropical plant collector 35 years Gina1960 Mar 5, 2020 4:54 PM CST |
| Cork slabs are common orchid supplies. You can also use tree fern plaques. You can also use blasted grapevine, half of a coconut shell, cedar or cypress shingles (untreated) Award winning beaded art at ceinwin.deviantart.com! |
Name: Adrienne Ohio (Zone 6b) Adriennevs Mar 5, 2020 7:38 PM CST |
| I wonder if I could get a cypress shingle at Lowe's or Home Depot. I try to buy my stuff locally or at least exhaust all my local options before turning to amazon. Sometimes it's unavoidable though. |
Name: Gina Florida (Zone 9a) Tropical plant collector 35 years Gina1960 Mar 5, 2020 8:36 PM CST |
| Lumber yards would have them for sure I would think. Cedar and cypress are pretty common here and are used as siding on houses because the wood is naturally more rot resistant. We have cedar siding on the outside of our house. Award winning beaded art at ceinwin.deviantart.com! |
Name: Adrienne Ohio (Zone 6b) Adriennevs Mar 7, 2020 11:05 AM CST |
| I have to go to Home Depot anyway because I'm working on a bench so I'll see if they have them. I've actually been thinking about putting my Hoya curtisii on a mount because it's just the strangest plant. Every time I think I have it figured out it throws me a curve ball. So I have that and the scindapsis as options. |
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