Ceramic Orchid pots?

[Arizona Jeanie]

I have a favorite mini phal that is reblooming and has survived four years. It's currently in a six inch plastic net basket pot, and keeps happily squeezing roots out through the plastic. I'm thinking of repotting in a ceramic orchid pot, it would be able to send out all the roots it wanted, and I'd have a prettier pot to look at. But--when it's time to repot again and change the growing medium--how do you do that with a ceramic pot? Any other issues I'm not seeing here? I'm in central Arizona, humidity here runs 20% or less, this is a hardy little plant! I'd appreciate any advice you could share.

[twinofmunin]

I am not an expert by any means. Definitely new to orchid-growing. However, my suggestion would be to repot into another plastic orchid pot that sits nicely inside of a ceramic pot. I haven't done it myself, but it seems that if you let a plant entwine its roots through holes in a ceramic pot, one of the two will have to suffer at repotting time. Of course, you could keep a close eye on it and repot it before that happened, if you really wanted to.

[chilover]

I've had to break a lot of ceramic pots over the years. Sometimes I can gently ease the roots back through the openings after I wet them well but it doesn't always work that good. I still use the ceramic orchid pots but I do usually now place my orchids in a clear plastic orchid pot and then set that inside the ceramic one. The plastic ones are a lot cheaper to replace when I have to cut them up.

[DweamGoiL]

Also, with the low humidity in AZ, I would not recommend an unglazed clay pot. It will need to be watered much more often. Glazed ceramic is ok if you have a lot of aeration holes for the roots (buy a true orchid pot), but more than likely, you will have to break the pot when it's time to up-pot to a new one.

[u bada]

In hotter drier climates, potted is really better and more practical, and in terms of potted, plastic tends to be the best way to go... clay and ceramic that is glazed only one the outside can hold mineral deposits and salts that can harm orchid roots- especially water like what we have in southwest, and are hard to remove orchids from when you repot... repotting will end up being necessary in most cases when you grow potted. With plastic deposits don't stick and you an flush a potted plant out pretty easily, and easy to remove a plant from plastic pots, cutting the plastic if you have to.

It's just all around more practical to pot in plastic and place plastic potted plant in ceramic.

[Orchid Whisperer]

With a good root system, you can trim roots as needed at repotting time. Simply clip the roots as needed (sterilized knife or shears). Repot normally, wait a couple days before you water again

[estación seca]

Arizona Jeanie, Welcome to the Orchid Board!

I live in Phoenix. Unless your water is really low in dissolved minerals, I strongly recommend you collect and store rain and snowmelt in clean, covered plastic trash barrels. It will make an enormous difference to your orchids.

[Arizona Jeanie]

Oh thank you all! I just couldn't quite see how to re-pot out of a ceramic one--sounds like plastic pot inside the decorative pot is the way to go. Water here has a lot of calcium but I do water with it, mist with purchased r/o water. Sr Estacion, it's great to get advice from an Arizonan, conditions are different here. I'm in Prescott, cooler than you are and my house is relatively dark. I was surprised when the phal did so well here--it's been fun!