You probably aren't going to find those products here, but the ones we have available work fine. I'm sure that some of our orchid growers like Bea and Linda will be here soon to give you their recommendations. I know it's hard to change the way you grow plants, but trust me, we have thousands of people growing orchids happily here without cork bark. I believe that the cocoa shell mulch proved toxic to dogs, didn't it? I think it may be prohibited here for that reason, but not sure.

Try MRT garden center on Englewood Road. They have a large selection of orchids. If you want some truly exotic varieties, go to Selby Gardens in Sarasota. They sell some wonderful orchids and used to have a large selection of bare root orchids also, but I haven't been there in years, so don't know if they still do. That's the place to go for the best orchids. There is an orchid society in Sarasota, and maybe one in Venice as well. Ask at MRT. They know all about these things. The Taylor family has been in this area for decades and are really experienced in horticulture. In fact, they owned 23 sq. miles of land in that area at one time, but much of it has been sold off (Taylor Ranch).

Thanks so much for sharing info excited to follow up on your suggestions. Plan trip to Apoka as well are you familiar? Started mounting on bark and driftwood many years ago after 1996 Hurricane Bertha destroyed all my plants attached directly to trees. Was able to save everything when Irma and Marie came as I could bring everything inside. Neighbors assure me Venice doesn't experience hurricane winds hope it's true.

Venice, FL is in a high risk hurricane zone.

72 hurricanes have been recorded in the Venice, FL since 1930.
The largest hurricane was Donna in 1960.
The most recent Venice, FL hurricane was Bonnie in 2010.

https://www.homefacts.com/hurricanes/Florida/Sarasota-County/Venice.html

The west coast hardly ever gets hit by major hurricanes, especially the Venice area, but that doesn't mean it won't happen. Most of those that get into the Gulf head for the panhandle, or hit further south where there are warmer bay and harbor waters. Still, not many people mount theirs in trees along the coast, but on mounting materials where they can be moved into a safe place.

Remember that the climate is changing and we're seeing hurricanes in places that have never seen hurricanes before. Venice has caught the edge of a lot of bad storms and barely escaped others, like Charley in 2004, which did damage there, but didn't make a direct hit. I wouldn't count on history holding true. We hadn't had a major Gulf Coast hurricane in decades before 2004 when Charley did catastrophic damage to Punta Gorda and Port Charlotte.

If there is one thing you should learn about Florida it's that a lot of info you get from people are those who have only lived here in the winter, and hurricane season ends on December 1. Never trust what people say. Watch the weather like a hawk, even now when it seems the tropics have calmed down. There have been major hurricanes in October and I believe even in early November.

Learn to take hurricanes very seriously. Remember, it's not the wind, it's the water that does the most damage. Just look at the Bahamas for proof of that. We've had Cat. 1 hurricanes and even tropical storms that stalled and dumped water for days, causing major flooding and devastation. Venice isn't any safer than any other place here.

Thanks for the great advice couldn't agree more. Living in St. John for twenty years proved the same. In July of 1996 I lost all my orchids directly attached to palm trees. It was ridiculous I'm a nurse and was out there wrapping my Vanda's with kerlix a stretchable gauze around everyone I could reach. Looked like mummy's in the garden. Bertha was a CAT 1 took the bark off the bougainvilleas but no structural damage. That's when I started mounting to driftwood and bark. With IRMA in September 2017 no one on St. John ever thought we would be hit with a CAT 5 as we are so small but we were wrong. The hurricane is totally unpredictable in last hours as are the tornados that can be spawned.

We just downsized to apt with small lanai in over 55 community. Hubby built lattice wall attached to 48" planter boxes on casters I can move based on exposure or weather.

Our house in STJ is substantial and we had no damage except to my garden which God rearranged. The island and garden is glorious again.

I'm so happy your island is beautiful again. After devastation like what happened to Puerto Rico with Maria and the Bahamas this year, it's hard to imagine things ever being right again, but Mother Nature is so resilient, and she abhors a vacuum, so it all grows back quickly. My online friend who lives in Hawaii says that after a storm, they comb the beaches and areas close to the beach for strange seeds and plants that have washed up. A lot of what we call "native" plants here in FL were washed in on storms from other places.

72 hurricanes since 1930 doesn't sound like "hardly ever" to me. A realtor told my cousin Oviedo didn't get hurricanes and it wasn't too long after that that a hurricane blew part of the roof of the house she bought there away. Florida is as flat as a pancake, lines right up with the zone of frequent major storms coming out of the ocean.

Oh, and Irma had me on pins and needles for days when it headed for Florida. We got TS force winds here in Gainesville, but it took down a lot of trees. We have some really nice trees here, and it was sad to see them go. Lots of homes were flooded and ruined too. The summer had been so wet that the ground was saturated, so the water had nowhere to go.

I went through Hugo in SC, and my cousin's house on the Battery in Charleston, which is set up 8 feet above ground and is well over 100 years old, had 3 feet of mud on her first floor and 5 feet in the basement. Family and friends had spent HOURS hauling antique rugs and furniture up to the second and third floors before the storm. We spent days afterwards shoveling mud out of the bottom floor and basement. She forgot she had stored an antique oriental rug down there, and it was literally covered in mud. I learned that old things are much tougher than new things. Not only did the heart pine floors survive intact once they dried, but the wool rug was cleaned and looked like new afterwards.

I grew up in SC, and spent summers on the coast, so I have a great respect for hurricanes and even bad summer thunderstorms. When I moved to FL, I was SHOCKED at how cavalier the northerners were about them. They laughed at me for boarding up windows when we were expecting a Cat 2, and most did not board up for Charley or any of the other hurricanes that struck FL that year. We're pretty safe up here, but all the fallen trees during Irma proved to some that we aren't ever completely safe. We had a bad thunderstorm with micro-bursts last summer that took out electricity all over the city. Mine was out for two days.

Power outages are another thing that people don't think much about in storms. People die without electricity, as we experienced after Irma left a nursing home without power. A lot of the casualties in Puerto Rico were from having no power in hospitals.

I know I rant about this all the time, but I'd really like to see people take these things more seriously. Some man in the Bahamas was live streaming the water lapping at his door. His house was on 12-foot stilts, and he could just barely see the top of his neighbor's house, and they were inside. I wonder if he made it, but I imagine the stilts gave out at some point, and his family was washed away. His children were with him. I cried when the feed died. I cried for days over PR and the Bahamas, as I have for the devastation of every major storm or flood. My soul is attuned to human suffering.

One day the earth will have enough of us and she will stop wiping us out a few thousand at a time and just flick us off like fleas, like she did the dinosaurs.

NOTE: Embothrium is in the PNW and often visits this forum to share advice, mostly derived from books, but I wouldn't take much stock in her hurricane advice. Oviedo is not on the Gulf Coast, or anywhere near it. Being inland doesn't save you from hurricane damage, as we who have lived with hurricanes our whole lives know all too well. Stick with the local experts and the National Hurricane Center for the best advice and news.