This manual is suitable for moisture-loving orchids (such as paphiopediums, fragmapediums, folidots, etc.)
Plastic is very good for orchids, as such pots do not absorb salts from water, often transparent, which helps to monitor the condition of the roots, but... ugly. And so I want to decorate my own house not only with exotic beauty, but also with what it grows in.
Wicker baskets look very beautiful in any interior, but the substrate in them quickly dries up, so they try not to plant them unnecessarily (only if the peduncle grows down, like stangopei).
1-2. On my hands I had sobralia fimbriata, with absolutely hairy roots, which is a sign of moisture-loving and intolerance to salinity, and a basket from Ikea was piled up.
3. In order to prevent any garbage from falling out of the basket, the substrate did not dry out, and the roots did not stick to the walls of the basket, we take an ordinary rustling bag and put it in the basket. Then we will cut it off at the edge of the basket. If you need to transplant, then you can do it by taking the edges of the package, and transplant without much injury to the roots.
4. At the bottom and on the sides we hole it (within reason) there should be no more than 12 holes and you need to make them no more than 5 mm. Holes will act as drainage holes, and on the sides give the roots access to air.
We pour drainage somewhere 1/3 of the basket .
You can use regular foam pieces of 2-3 cm, but I ran out of foam, so I used regular expanded clay.
Then we plant the plant in fine bark.
5. We cover everything with moss-sphagnum so that the substrate dries up more slowly. And cut the bag along the edge of the basket.
6. This beauty turned out.
Author of the article Anyanya