Which orchids would YOU say are too big for potting?

[Fishkeeper]

I don't keep anything in that shape of orchid, but I've seen potted plants of other species that are bigger than me. Palms, mostly, some bamboos, elephant ears, other big foliage plants like that.

Can you not just pot it without staking it? If the plant would do fine splaying on a mount, why wouldn't it do fine splaying in a pot?

[Stevie_White]

Originally Posted by Fishkeeper

Can you not just pot it without staking it? If the plant would do fine splaying on a mount, why wouldn't it do fine splaying in a pot?

If you don't stake the canes they often end up splaying around the pot in all directions, and when that pot is sitting on a shelf that ends up taking up a lot of space. In addition the weight of those canes can pull the pot over if you manage to get most/all of them leaning the same way. If you stake canes that are 2.5ft long straight up you have a very top heavy pot that could fall over with a slight fan breeze/bump.

When hung on a mount the canes will tend to hang in the same direction; down (see the picture I found/attached). Since mounts are typically hung on a wall/rack you don't have the same issue of gravity pulling it down. That might be fine if you can hang the pot from the ceiling but that's not always an option.

I'd just like different opinions on which plants people might have in their collections that might be more practical to have mounted/hung. At some point I would imagine that most people come to the conclusion that orchids with canes over "x" cm/in long aren't practical to keep in a pot.