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Can You Grow Orchids in a Wine Cork Substrate?

 

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Pieces of wine cork make a great orchid substrate.

Question: Can I grow orchids in pieces of wine cork?

Guylaine Martin
Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada

Answer: Absolutely. In fact, orchid-lovers use cork in all its forms as a substrate for their plants.

Most often orchids are mounted on slabs of orchid bark, allowing them to grow much as they would in the wild (most orchids are epiphytes and grow on tree branches). However, chipped cork bark is an ingredient in many orchid potting mixes and can also be used alone as an orchid substrate. You’ll even find chipped cork sold commercially for that purpose on orchid supplier web sites.

Of course, none of the products above are made from old wine corks, but rather directly from cork bark as harvested from trees, but there is nothing that is toxic to orchids in corks harvested from wine bottles and no reason you can’t use them. Many home orchid growers do.

Making a Wine Cork Orchid Substrate

Break wine corks into pieces a quarter inch (5 mm) in size or larger. Discard any dust or finer pieces: they could reduce air circulation to the roots. You can use your “cork chips” alone or mix them with other products traditionally used as components of orchid substrates, such as osmunda, rock wool, sphagnum, conifer bark or lava rock.

To learn how to repot an orchid, read How to Repot an Orchid.

Orchids in Whole Corks

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Vanda growing in intact wine corks. Photo: OrchidTalk Forum

Some orchid hobbyists use intact wine corks as a substrate, especially for orchids that require a great deal of aeration around their roots, like vandas (Vanda). Why not?

Red or White?

There remains one question for which I could not find an answer: do the orchids prefer white wine corks or red wine corks?

Carry out your own tests and see! (I suspect drinking your way to the conclusion could be just as enjoyable as carrying out the test!)

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Garden writer and blogger, author of 65 gardening books, lecturer and communicator, the Laidback Gardener, Larry Hodgson, passed away in October 2022. Known for his great generosity, his thoroughness and his sense of humor, he reached several generations of amateur and professional gardeners over his 40-year career. Thanks to his son, Mathieu Hodgson, and a team of contributors, laidbackgardener.blog will continue its mission of demystifying gardening and making it more accessible to all.

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