I bought this oncidium in an orchid farm and it was potted in a 5 inches round clay pot with coconut husk. When I bought it, the coconut husk was still about good, but I could tell that the coconut husk is almost decomposed or will be like a soil in less than a year.
When a coconut husk is decomposed, the roots of the oncidium will have a hard time of developing and absorbing water to fulfill its necessary hydration requirement. I have been always thinking of finding a better medium that would last long for the oncidium to use so that I don’t have to repot very often. I have tried a charcoal and sphagnum moss mixture, which was good but not good enough for the oncidium. It could not grow a very good root system on this mixture. Some of my oncidium are okay and they like it. They even flower several times, like the Sharry Baby and Yunan Fragrant and the Giant Yellow. But some of my oncidiums like Shelob could not develop a good root system.
The roots of Shelob Tolkein could not attach very well to the charcoal and so, I have thought of using a mixture of broken clay pot and fern chips mixture. This mixture to me would address the need to not repot very often because the fern chips will last several years, like even 10 years and the broken clay pot will not decompose, so I think this is a good mixture.
In this video, I have demonstrated on how to use it in repoting an oncidium. I will also use this mixture on dendrobium orchids as well.
