Submerging

[cb977]

Originally Posted by goodgollymissmolly

For goodness sakes, Steven. It's obvious that movement of the medium causes roots to dislodge, dislodging roots causes root damage, and root damage causes poor plant performance and possibly death.

Those are not debatable. Will slight movement of the surface clay in your SH during watering cause a problem? Probably not, but wholesale movement of the potting medium is not good. Ray even touts his SH potting containers as stiff enough to avoid medium movement during casual handling of pots. Why do think he says that?

We can debate this for years, but it won't change the result of disrupting and damaging roots.

Jim...

the only way to learn is to ask questions...that's why we're all here. Something that is obvious to you may not be so to somebody else so...

I'm gonna add my here...
Let's keep this conversation friendly...or else

[Ross]

I wasn't going to respond to this thread, but I want to just say that since the 1970s when I got my first Phal I have rutinely watered all orchids by partial submersion and not seen any evidence of medium being disturbed. Now, as Ray suggests, there is dipping (probably what I do) and full submersion. Actually I set the pot into the solution to about half way then pour more solution through it. This is how I soak them. 75% of my collection is on mounts, and I don't have a greenhouse. So when I soak them, they must be submerged. Before I did this with my first Phal, my dad grew Cats for more years than I can count and watered them the same way (pretty much.) He was still growing them up till last year when he went to a nursing home in Lutz, and now my sister has them. In the last years he just put them out under the trees in St. Pete and let nature take care of them. They hadn't been repotted in over 10 years and bloomed fantasticly. They still haven't been repotted, to my knowledge.

[mayres]

From my experience an opportune time to submerge would be when you have an orchid potted up in a poor quality bark that is not absorbing water very well. Rather than pouring water through the media it is advantageous to let the pot/media rest in another container of water up to the top of the media level for a spell for at least a number of watering periods until the media is "conditioned" - this may take 4-5 periods or more.

[Des]

I have been standing my cymbids and zygos in 5 to 10mm of water for about 6 years now . I was told that the roots will rot , but if they have not rotted in 6 years then i dont think they will. It is an ideal method of ensuring my plants dont dry out will i am away

[Leisurely]

I cannot visualize that gently submerging a plant in water up to the rim will disturb the roots or cause root damage. Roots that are attached to the bark or pot are not easily removed. If a plant is properly potted, when you are finished you should be able to lift the plant by the leaves with having it come out of the pot. A plant potted like this is not going to have any problem with being submerged in water.

[Vanessa]

I have some 8 and 9 year old Dendros that I keep on my front porch and on my back lanai. I have always put them in a bucket and turned the hose on them til full and let soak awhile. Still do and still will. They are very reliable bloomers so they must be happy campers.........

[Phantasm]

Dunking your plants for a short period of time does no harm at all, in fact the plant might just enjoy having clean leaves. I do so with my mounted plants occaisionally, otherwise they just get liberally hosed. Losing the media from the pot is a concern depending on how you water. If you are just bathing your plant then the media doesn't have to be involved, but dunking everything means that you have to find a way to keep everything in the pot!

If you could do so, it might just dislodge any critters in your potting mix.

In my greenhouse, I hose the plant, pot and just about everything else and the plants love it. Dunking is a bit time entensive for such an operation!

[Neverend]

Submerging in my opinion is alright actually, like what all the others have said, it makes sure your plant is well watered and can also wash away dust on its leaves. However take note that viruses and pests can spread if you dunk all your orchids in the same pool of water.

[Leisurely]

The only way that you can spread virus from one plant to another is by damaging plant tissue. If you carefully submerge your plant without damaging any tissue there will be no problem with spreading a virus.

[Ross]

My experience over nearly 20 years has been - be careful of your sources, quarantine your new purchases, be scrupulous in your cleaning of dunking buckets with Physan 20 or equiv. and one should be OK. I recognize that I should NEVER recommend any process like this to the "faint of heart" or those that cannot afford to replace the whole collection, but consider I went through a hail storm and lost most of mine to hail. So dunking in communal pool seems trivial to what "Mother Nature" can deal out.