Quote:
Originally Posted by silken
I like medium bark, clear pots with good amount of holes in them. And never over pot them as root rot can occur. Other people will have other preferences for potting methods, but so long as it is open and the roots can breathe, you can use what suits you.
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The more I look at this, the more I think that the problem of overpotting isn't the diameter of the pot, it's the depth.
To me, the art of growing an epiphyte is in finding a balance between what the plant needs, and what you need. Ideally, an epiphyte should be grown naked on bark/wood and moistened regularly. However most of us don't want to be moistening the damn things every 5 minutes. So, we pot them to extend the times between waterings. Now a small pot works just fine, provided it is packed with chunks of bark so that it can drain quickly and retain moisture but not too much. However the down side is that if the plant is happy and grows well, it will need to be repotted quite frequently, and they don't like that much. Some Catts will sulk for a year if you don't repot at EXACTLY the right time of year.
So what's to do? My experiment this year will be to repot Catts as they need it into large, sloping trays a couple of inches deep. I hope that this will allow them to grow for many years without disturbance, while keeping some moisture, but also keeping them free from moisture induced rot.
I think that orchid sellers are missing out. What we need are large diameter pots, say 25 to 45 cm in diameter, but only 10 cm deep.
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