I hate trying to pry roots off of clay pots! The 'chids all stick to them like glue! I do keep some around to hold plants in when in bloom (stick the plastic pot inside the clay pot) just to hold them up. otherwise - it's Skeet shooting time!
Welcome to OrchidTalk Orchid Forums
The Friendliest Orchid Community on the Internet!
OrchidTalk - "Bringing People Together to Grow Orchids Better!"
Let us help you grow your Orchids better; Join our community today.
YES! I want to register an account for free right now!
Register or Login now to remove this advertisement.
Paphs
Phrags
Phals
Catts
Onc
Intergenic/other
Cymbidiums
target practice
Another growers preference poll - tell us how you feel about clay pots for orchids...
I hate trying to pry roots off of clay pots! The 'chids all stick to them like glue! I do keep some around to hold plants in when in bloom (stick the plastic pot inside the clay pot) just to hold them up. otherwise - it's Skeet shooting time!
I go along with the skeet shooting idea,
I have NONE in my collection and I dont know of anyone with any.
I also use clay pots mainly to keep the plants upright... either as an outer pot or else as crocks....
The main thing I don't like about clay pots is that the roots do stick to the pot and it makes repotting a horrid job otherwise...
I recently discover how beneficial clay pots are. But the ones that do well with clay pots are not well represented in Diane poll!
Lot of dends will do very well with clay pots! Many of my dends are in clay pots. Tolumnias will do very well with clay pots. In fact all of my tolumnias, aka equitants, except the mounted ones are in clay pots. Many of my species (rhynchostylis, renantheras, psychopsis, etc...) are also in clay pots! I keep some of my phals in clay pots too. They seem to do very well.
Cheers. Hoa.
Other than using clay pots to stabilize plastic pots, I use them for the little orchids on the stick. I don't always have the time to spray them, so I "plant them". I put then in a clay pot with a little of lava rocks around the lower end of the stick and that keeps them moist for a little longer. Seems to be working so far...
A
I like to grown in sphagnum (except for Catts), and have seen significant improvement in clay, so I'm slowly moving most of my plants into clay. Hey, who can argue with twice the roots and leaf growth over plastic pots? A few sticky roots I can deal with.
Julie
We use clay pots for some catts, phals, and dends in our personal collection. When repotting, we do not try to pry the roots off of the clay pot in catts. We simply take a small hammer and break the pot. The pieces usually come right off after that. Sometimes I use a flexible steak knife and slide around the inside of the clay pot to release the roots and then dump the rot mass out for dividing or up-potting. I like the clay because we like to bring plants in bloom into the house and the clay keeps them sturdy. Dends for example get very tall. The clay pot is usually heavy enough to support the canes and flowers for display in the home. For the sale plants, we stick to plastic. Shipping in clay would be outrageous. (Shipping is already outrageous, but in clay, it would be ridiculous.) Some of our phals are grown in clay pots too—again for support. The only problem with clay is that you have to be careful about watering. Plastic doesn’t pull water away from the plant, but clay will. If you use clay and plastic, you just have to be sure you understand the difference when it comes to watering.
Cheers!
BD
I have some in clay and some in plastic , I prefer clay for the Catts. and use a hammer , a lot of mine are in the Hydroton pellets .. bust the pot and set it into a larger one . I grow pretty much the same types Sir Speedo does in clay . Gin
I'm partial to clay for standard catts because 1. they get heavy and are prone to tipping over, and 2. I tend to water too much, what with the paphs, phrags and all.
also am very partial to clay/sphagnum for phrag besseae, and masdies. also stuck all my longpetalled phrag species in that setup in hopes of keeping the root zone cooler during the summer, and hoping that sphag's temporary antiseptic properties will ward off basal rot this summer.