"Cool Pots" from the Orchid Gallery

[lund0682]

I can't comment on growing 'cool' orchids, but I do know a little about heat transfer.

Based on the pictures at the Orchid Gallery website, this looks just like a regular terra cotta pot (but made with fancy white clay). The only possible cooling will be from evaporation at the pots surface. To keep moisture at the surface of the pot, I imagine you'd need a pretty wet mix inside the pot. How will the orchids feel about that? You guys know better than me

Of course if the surface of the pot is dry, there won't be any evaporative cooling, and the pot (and roots) will be the same temperature as the rest of the room. If you have a very humid environment then evaporation (and cooling) will naturally be less.

The thermal imaging picture on the website definitely seems like a gimmick to me. They show two clay pots, with the 'cool' pot registering ten degrees cooler. Something is fishy here. Is the standard clay pot glazed? (keeping the surface dry) Is the standard pot completely dry inside? (and therefore no evaporative cooling). Did the 'cool' pot just come out of the refrigerator? I'm very suspicious.

The link provided by RosieC (to Ray's idea) looks like a great idea to me. And a small fan blowing on the pot would increase evaporation (and cooling) even more.

[Paul Mc]

Interesting Lund0682. I was thinking it was kind of gimmicky myself but thought I'd ask you knowledgeable people.

BTW, I'm in St. Louis as well! Hello!

[RosieC]

You are right that the cooling is all from evaporation, nothing fancy except I think that the ones from Orchid Gallery have a shape which gives an increased surface area to allow more evaporative cooling.

An yes, it works best when the medium is damp, but for orchids such as Masdies they quite like to be that way anyway. I grow Masdies in moss (I would never touch moss for most other orchids) in a porus clay pot (£0.50 each from a local store), the moss dries pretty quickly which is also due to the high evaporation and I have to keep them damp, not just for the cooling, but because the plants like enough moisture at all. Basically with these sorts of plants I water again as soon as it seem to be drying and they seem to love it.

Ray's idea is a great one for dryer loving plants, although I would have thought even then the damp in the clay would somewhat go back into the medium but probably not as much.

Remember that the main thing with orchids is not so much too much water but not enough air flow. If you can have plenty of air flow in the medium and you have roots adjusted to it, then even some of the genera we think of as dryer growing can grow wetter.

[lund0682]

RosieC, you make some good comments. As long as the surface of the pot is wet there will be evaporation, and therefore cooling. And as long as your plants are happy, that's what counts!

If anyone does try out some of these pots, maybe they'll put a thermometer in amongst the roots and let the rest of us know how it compares to the temperature in a regular pot? I guess I'm kind of a science-aloholic when it comes to this sort of thing

I'm actually tempted to get a couple of these 'cool' pots just to satisfy my curiosity. After all - what's the worst that could happen? Even if I choose to grow non-wet plants in them, they'd still work fine as ordinary pots. And I have to admit that they're good looking pots. I really like that white clay. Don't get me wrong! - it's not that I have anything against regular terra cotta, but the white pots somehow seem fancier.

Hi Paul Mc! It's nice to hear from another St Louisan (St Louisite?).

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

How cool growing are the Masdevallias you're wanting to get are they?

There are tons of Masdevallias that don't need to be grown all that cool.

[Paul Mc]

I am just now realizing that there are some Masdie's that are not cool growing! I went ahead and purchased one pot because I would like to experiment and see what the truth is, plus there is something about white clay, lol...