Potting vandas - dried roots & basket size

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Motes doesn't soak his plants. He sprays them with a hose once or twice a day. He fertilizes every 5th watering, meaning salts are washed off the roots between waterings.

He makes a point in his book that, with proper temperature and adequate water, the pale green zone of new growth at the base of emerging leaves should be 1cm wide. Wider and fertilizer should be cut back; narrower and more fertilizer is indicated.

I almost never cut off orchid roots. I can't reliably tell which are dead.