How to choose the right flower pot when planting

CultivationOrchids, except for open-groundcultivation, for the sake of easy management and appreciation, need a suitable container, which should both look attractive and meet the requirements oforchidhabits. Several common pot materials are introduced below: 1. Clay pot Made by firing ordinary clay blanks, it has strong moisture absorption, good breathability and drainage, and is often used for potted flowers and trees. Those fired without being glazed with water are red. The texture is fragile, and after years of use the surface of the pot often flakes off naturally, so it is not durable and its sturdiness is rather poor; another type is glazed with water and is grayish-black, with a texture firmer than the red kind. Clay pots come in many forms such as wide-mouthed, tall-waisted and small-bottomed. The mouth diameter ranges from 5 to more than 30 cm. Although this kind of pot is cheap and good, because its shape and color are not attractive, when it is used for indoor display or exhibition, it should be placed inside another pot that is graceful in form and suitable in color, so as to set off theorchid's elegant posture and spirit. 2. Porcelain pot Made by firing blanks of porcelain clay, it has a fine texture and glossy color, with shades such as blue-and-white, sapphire blue, jun red, all white, cream yellow and pea green, as well as ice-crack patterns. Forms include trumpet-mouthed, square, tall cylindrical, drum-shaped, round bowl-shaped, crabapple-shaped and polygonal. Because this kind of porcelain pot is tightly textured, has poor breathability and does not easily release moisture, it is generally mostly used as a decorative outer pot. 3. Glazed pot First made from pottery clay blanks, then coated on the outside with colored glaze and fired. Its color is smooth and colorful, with jun glaze, white glaze and blue glaze being the most common. There are many forms, including decal, half-glazed, painted and relief. It is the most used item among pots forgrowing orchids. 4. Sand pot There are purple sand, red sand, white sand, black mud, iron sand and pear-skin mud, among others. Forms include golden bell style, crabapple-shaped, pot-bottom-shaped and trumpet-mouthed. Sand pots are antique and elegant in color and solid in texture, with stronger breathability than porcelain and glazed flower pots, and are one of the pots widely adopted in orchid-growing circles. In particular, Yixing purple sand pots are used more often in thecultivationof Chinese orchids. Of the various orchid pots mentioned above, although each has its own characteristics, the most widely used are the sand pot and the glazed pot. As for the form of the pot, the trumpet shape, the tall-waisted wide-mouthed round pot, the pot-bottom round pot and the golden bell style are the most suitable, because once the pot is round, no matter which direction the orchid flower bud grows in, it can be turned accordingly for front viewing without affecting the beauty of the pot's form. Orchid roots are aerial-loving fleshy roots, so afterwards there must be an environment with good breathability and strong drainage; therefore the pot base should preferably stand on tall feet so as to strengthen air convection. The height of the pot feet is generally 3 to 5 cm, and the diameter of the drainage hole at the bottom of the pot should be 3 to 5 cm. Cymbidium goeringiihas a relatively fine and short root system, so a trumpet-shaped or round pot can be used;Cymbidium faberihas thick and long roots, so it is better to use a tall-waisted golden bell shape, a deep pot-bottom round pot or a tall, deep polygonal pot. The root systems of other terrestrial orchids are even thicker, longer and denser, so they should be planted in large, tall, deep or round, broad pots, and it is better for these to be too large than too small, so as to have sufficient soil volume and allow the roots to spread out. In thecultivationof orchids grown mainly for their flowers (that is, flowering orchids), in order to let the root system and the plant fully grow and develop and bloom well, it is best to cultivate them in rather large pots; while the cultivation of orchids grown mainly for theirleavesis just the opposite, for in order to promote variation in their leaves, their growth must be inhibited. Therefore, small, tall and narrow pots are better. All kinds of pots, before being used, must first be soaked in clean water for a period of time, and it is better to use them only after they have absorbed enough water and their fire heat has been eliminated. (Song Shi)