Wow... heavy organic soil...

[Pilot]

Hi All!

Wanted to share with you an experience I had today at my local grocer regarding some phals. Of course I bought one...they went for 5 bucks! But when I was looking for the one I wanted, I was also pulling them out of their pots to see the roots. I found the one I wanted-- it is white with a strawberry blush near the center with pink/raspberry strips near the lip-- very nice. But when I yanked it out of the pot I found it stuffed in drenched, heavy organic soil-- the kind you'd use for african violents or something that likes wet feet. I was shocked... of course loads of other people were buying too and looked at me like I was being rude, pulling them out of their pots. But if an orchid is grown properly I don't see that as a bad thing as if it moss, the moss would not fall out like the soil...and if it were bark you'd be able to see the status of the roots through the pot... anyway, it is clear the producer of these orchids just wanted to keep the roots moist (drenched in this case) and had no intentions of keeping the plant alive. Thankfully the one I wanted, though in heavy soil, had very good looking roots. I think if it spent another day or so the roots would have begun to suffer a lot.

So I unpotted it when I got it home, rinsed off the heavy soil and proceeded to spray it down with a physan mixture to stave off anything funky. It is not sitting in its outer clay pot drying out a bit before I put it back into some sort of proper medium. It shows not signs right now of active root growth so the s/h will be held off.

The name of it, BTW, is 'Pauline Rose.' Its really pleasant. I'll post pics soon. But I had to share my shocking experience!