Choosing The Right Orchid Pot Or Container For Your Plants

Orchids have very different requirements from a container than your normal house plant. Orchids can grow with hardly any or no compost at all as long as there roots receive water on a regularly basis.The orchids roots should never be allowed to become water-logged and an orchid pot should allow air to circulate around the roots.

There are many different types of container or pot you can use for your orchid and you don't even need to use a container at all. Epiphyte orchids can be grown on a section of bark or cork that has been sterilized or a section of tree-fern fiber. These effectivley mimic the habitat of many epiphyte orchids.

Below are detailed the sorts of container you can use for your orchid plants with a brief outline into the advantages and disadvantages of each type.

Baskets

Orchids that take in their moisture and nutrition through aerial roots and those orchids that have trailing flowers are ideally suited for basket growing. Baskets of this type are typical made of plastic coated wire or are square baskets formed from individual wooden slats.

The basket should be lined with sphagnum moss and then filled with a suitable orchid compost mix. Baskets are very open containers so they will need to be watered regularly, for this reason they may not be suitable to hang in your average house and are more suited to the conservatory or greenhosue.

Terracotta or Clay pots

The clay pot is an ideal container for your orchid as the natural clay construction allows air in so that your plant roots can "breathe" and it also allows water to evaporate out which helps to prevent your roots from becoming water-logged.

Top heavy plants placed in a clay pot will also be more difficult to knock over than those in plastic pots due to the weight of the pot itself. The disadvantage with clay orchid pots is that they are generally more expensive than plastic ones and they don't come in a huge range of colors.

Plastic pots

Plastic pots come in a huge range of different shapes, sizes and colors so you are bound to find one to fit in with your home environment.They also have the advantage of probably being the cheapest form of container.

Plastic pots will not allow your compost mix to dry out too quickly but on the negative side you do need to be careful of water retention as you don't want water-logged roots which is the main killer of orchids in the home.

You can also buy transparent plastic pots that enable you to see the condition of your orchids roots and compost without disturbing the plant itself. This is why many growers sell their orchids in the type of pot as it makes it easy for them to keep an eye on the state of the plant whilst they are in store waiting to be sold.

All mature orchids should be placed into individual pots. If you want to create a display of several orchids place these pots into a large outer container which can be a basket or another more decorative pot.

Where the outer container is to have no drainage holes make sure that you provide plenty of drainage material in the form of small pebbles or gravel under your individual pots. This will prevent your orchids from siiting in water.

Always make sure with this type of planting that you always remove your individual pots from the outer container before watering your orchids and then return them back to your display once the water has drained through them.