Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Specific Families and Genera => Pleione and Orchidaceae => Topic started by: pehe on April 27, 2015, 04:20:02 PM
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Today when I was weeding in my woodland bed where I (among others) grow different Dactylorhiza species, I discovered some Dac seedlings.
I have only grown Dactylorhiza for about 5 years and have never found any seedlings until today. I was excited and looked through the whole bed for seedlings. I found quite a few, and what puzzled me was that almost all of them was in a row, almost as they have been sown as carrots in the kitchen garden.
But then I realized that the row was on top of a buried MDF fiberboard I have used to keep Convallaria majalis out of my Dactylorhiza bed.
By accident I have made a Dactylorhiza sow bed similar to the cardboard method, but in my garden under non sterile conditions using MDF fiberboard instead of cardboard!
Poul
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There are no end to the surprises our gardens -and plants - can give us!
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The fungi is using the cellulose in the MDF to feed from, in exactly the same way it does in the cardboard. Before it infects the seeds and germinates them.
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That is very cool. Do you have photos? The one (D. purpullera) I'm trying with cardboard is still doing well. Some of the larger protocorms doubled in size, and the ones I put out for light are starting to green up a little bit.
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Yes Maggi, nature is full of surprises - and this is one of the pleasant kind!
Naoki, here are some pics. Sorry for the poor quality.
Seedlings are marked with red arrow on the first pic.
The wood pieces you can see is not the MDF board, but some sticks that supported the board until compost was filled in the bed.
Poul