That's what I want to do with mine too, either a live tree for the mount or other kind of mount, in which I can include Tillandsias (air plants) too, that would also, conveniently by design of having no soil around the roots, make it impossible to overwater. Anything that can help this serial over-waterer, always in recovery, is a welcome blessing.
I'm seeing & hearing so many great things about full water culture for orchids, that I want to investigate that too. It looks so clean and gorgeous, being able to see all parts of the orchids, and again, no risk of overwatering. I've stuck my toe in this pool, so to speak, but sticking the protruding tip of my only orchid, a Phal, in a little cup of water. Soon after I did that, the stalks started to make more flower buds. No way to quantify cause/effect but I'm glad it's happening.
Regarding group planting in general, which I do a lot of, I group-pot plants that would have been placed next to each other & treated in the same way. Like you said, Zuirti, it's not the plants taking up so much space, but all of those pots. I have to draw the line at my house at 100 pots. It seems like enough (...until some potential point when I can't keep all of the plants I have in that number of pots, which seems unlikely because nobody has said a thing about the size of these pots, some of which are still small enough to pick up with 1 hand, plenty of room to grow. Hahaha! )
