Growing orchid in bulb pans or other such shallow containers

[JScott]

There used to be a member here, I cannot remember his name, although I wish I could so that I could thank him, nor do I know if he is still active, but he would regularly extol the virtues of growing orchids in bulb pans, because that solves the problem of the media being wet in the middle while being dry at the top and bottom. He was quite passionate about it.

About a year ago, I had some plants in 6 and 8 inch pots that needed bigger pots. They were such nice plants, I didn't want to divide them, but a 10 inch pot is so very deep, I thought it would be hard to get the watering right, and it might be hard to accommodate a pot that tall under my florescent lights in the winter. I remembered what this person had said about bulb pans, and I ordered some.

When I unpotted the plants, I found exactly what I expected. Thee roots toward the surface were in good shape, while everything deeper in the pot was dead. I potted them in the bulb pans and thought let's see what happens. I was able to find a few clear ones, so I could observe the roots as they grew, and they grew like crazy. The plants in the bulb pans seemed more vigorous than the others.

Then finally today, I had to repot one of my plants that had outgrown its 8 inch bulb pan and needed to go into a 10 inch, and when I unpotted it, I found that the roots were healthy all the way through the root ball, not dead in the center like what I was used to when using regular pots.

So anyway, I just wanted to share that and recommend, especially if you tend to be an over-waterer like me, that using shallow containers to grow your orchids can really help you keep the roots healthy. I wish I could remember who it was that talked about that on here so I could thank him, but oh well.