Well you were being so reasonable in saying "Oh the nurseries have to do it this way because..."

What a rational, calm response!! So far from grumpy complaining!! :biggrin:

You just have to improve the indignant, outraged quality in your complaints!! :)

Ok, so I should have said: I understand that they do it this way because bla bla bla, but oh how I hate their #§%x# (insert preferred swear word here) way of repotting!

One of my biggest complaints (and I'm to blame unfortunately) is deciding to repot some orchids, start doing it, realize I planned too many plants for the amount of mix I have on hand (or don't have the right pot for a plant), and having to split my repotting session into 2 parts. I should buy larger quantities of bark and sphag to save myself this headache....

I make all my own pots from soup containers and plastic cups, and I hate hate to drill all the holes in them! I don't have any real powertools so it takes me ages, and recently I repotted about 5-6 plants!!

I hate running out of mix, too.

I think, "I'd rather spend my $20 on a beautiful new orchid, not potting mix!!!" ...but naturally you must have potting media to maintain all the orchids you buy! It's like when I want to buy clothes instead of food haha

Astrid, use a nail and get it hot and you should be able to put holes in the pots fairly quickly. Use ventilation though.

I always repot immediately.
Usually nothing too surprising is found, although once i found a sock? in a pot. the roots were really nice though.

I think that you should never let the plant finish blooming before you repot it because roots and other plant parts can rot surprisingly quickly and you don't know what could be in the pot

One time I had to repot an Oncidium-thing out of a bunch of pillbugs, but that was kinda my own fault for keeping the pot on the ground where they could get in.

Now, something that was not my fault, I once got a clearance Phal that turned out to have some sort of freaky gross orange ball fungus on one of the roots.

Also it's really annoying when I'm totally convinced that something REALLY NEEDS to be repotted and then find out after doing so that it really didn't. I'm trying to work on developing a better sense of when to repot things.

I don't have anything that gets that hot!! I have to wait until I have my own kitchen... *sigh*

I would love to do that method, but I can't for now.

---------- Post added at 02:32 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:31 PM ----------

A sock?
Amazing.

They were just out of packing peanuts that day??

I repotted my Psychopsis and found a nasty, crumbling piece of furniture foam in the center. I had no idea that was there, all I could see was the bark.

Yeah, they put those weird pieces of foam in the middle. I am sure seedlings like all that moisture, but then they just leave it there in the core when they upsize the pot of the plant!!

That's what's left me with a completely rootless odontonia... that damn icky crumbly foam!!

---------- Post added at 06:51 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:50 PM ----------

Welp, you've just shamed me into repotting two of my blooming orchids!!!
...and guess what I found! More mossballs!!

But you know what? The roots were looking very healthy.

Healthy roots = Happy plant!
:)