favorite bark substrate

[jgriffin]

Okay..I have posed this Q on two other nep forums with no response, lol.
Has anyone tried multiple things like cypress, cedar, coco husk, orchid bark , and noticed any difference or likes/dislikes?

Cheers,

Joe

[David]

I'm out. Never tried all these before. Only tried coco husk and other stuff.

[NepNut]

Those barks that you mentioned are usually very expensive compared to other cheaper alternatives that's available in South East Asia... I guess that's why not many ppl use it here.

[hongrui]

i've tried pine bark and charcoal and coco husk. i find that pine bark works pretty well as an additive to open up the media. i've not observed much of a difference in growth between 1:1 peat: perlite compared to 1:1:1 peat: perlite: pine bark for most neps. the only nep that i grow and that it likes a fair bit of bark in the mix is N. veitchii. the epiphytical nature of the N. veitchii suggests that it should like a fair bit of bark in its media.

[kentosaurs]

I have totally no experience with the ones you stated.I've only use mostly LFS,live spahgmum moss,some sort of ground or clay or something and potting soil on my neps and other Cp's ....and just for the extra info those neps on potting soil still pitchers but with smaller ones.

Ken

[arvin555]

I'm guessing the reason for all of us not really having experience with the barks that you mentioned is that some of those barks are only easily found in the US. The easiest one that we can get here is Cocopeat or Coco husk, and because they work, we don't experiment with other stuff... much. At most I have experimented with 3 mediums in a mix, well plus perlite. And those mediums included some mosses not barks.

TTFN
Arvin

[jgriffin]

Yes, you are right. I mentioned those, as they are not hard to find here.
Are there any tree products in your areas that you have tried?

Cheers,

Joe