Pot size for adult Phalaenopsis

[Ray]

Originally Posted by The Peloric Orchid

Ray and Roberta, would using an inorganic medium, like rockwool and LECA, cause less of dead zone than using sphagnum moss?

I know that is true with most brands of LECA, but I really don't have enough experience with rock wool to know.

Blends of the two seem to dry pretty uniformly/

[Fairorchids]

Originally Posted by camille1585

I did mention it in my post.
Also, not sure what you mean by " these plants" as the OP does not mention what the Phal in question is, it might be something that gets rather large once mature.

Guess I did not read your posting in full.

'These plants' is based on the photo in original post, and the statement that this is a seedling population. From the looks of the plants, it could be a species or primary hybrid, so I doubt that they will grow 30-40 cm leaves.

[The Peloric Orchid]

Originally Posted by Fairorchids

Guess I did not read your posting in full.

'These plants' is based on the photo in original post, and the statement that this is a seedling population. From the looks of the plants, it could be a species or primary hybrid, so I doubt that they will grow 30-40 cm leaves.

To be specific, the plants in question are a mix of blooming size to near blooming size individuals of Phalaenopsis speciosa. Many grew spikes, but I lost the vast majority of buds to bud blast, likely due to underwatering them.

[Fairorchids]

That is one of the smaller species, so 4" pots will generally be fine.

[tmoney]

ahh, another speciosa! man, these seem to be popping up everywhere i look since we decided to join the little project this year. please please please post pics of your flowers, as i am amazed at the variety of blooms i see on plants labeled speciosa. it seems there are many variations.

but yes, the two we have are quite small, and the new leaves that have grown have come in small as well. so, just to stay on topic, our s/h speciosa has the smallest pot we had, which is similar to seedling pot size. by contrast tho, one is in the terrarium now, and it’s roots have exploded in size, so perhaps a 8er would be fine also for the first repot. but, honestly, we don’t overthink the pot size deal...we tend to use whatever pot we have that will easily accommodate the roots with the methods suggested above, like twisting in and all that. so, we try to use the smallest pot we have that we can wrangle roots in, perhaps leaving one or two of the highest out of the medium and so far we haven’t lost any due to repotting errors. *this is a newbie opinion, so take it as such *

when we did our first pot order we got a range of sizes. just for a different perspective, our mini mark was way overpotted cause we didn’t know any better at the time. but, after a recovery period, this summer it grew huge new leaves and is probably one of our better looking phals with excellent vegetative growth. hopefully our mix is such that the plant can grow into this pot over the next 2 years and then we will probly just put it back into the same one. so all this is to say i personally am still evaluating the over potting dangers as they are expressed online. within reason of course