How to ensure good ventilation in orchid care?

In the process of planting and caring for orchids, they must be in fresh air so that they can carry out respiration and photosynthesis normally, enhance metabolism, improve the absorption and transport of nutrients and fertilizers, and the accumulation of growing medium, reduce pests and diseases, and grow vigorously. Therefore, good ventilation and air exchange can ensure fresh air and good orchid growing.

1. Orchid plants mostly become diseased because the local temperature and humidity are too high, with stagnant heat and no ventilation, allowing pathogens and pests to spread quickly, especially aphids, whiteflies, scale insects, brown spot disease, southern blight, and the like, which are the most obvious.

2. Ventilation of the site and shade shed. The site should be as spacious as possible and on high ground. The flower bench can be built of brick or stone, or empty flower pots can be placed upside down, with the orchid pots placed on them, so that the orchid pots are 20 cm to 40 cm above the ground. Especially in places with poor ventilation, the orchid pots should be placed as high as possible. Bamboo curtains and bamboo fences are used for the shade shed; they are cheap and good, and provide satisfactory ventilation.

3. Poor indoor ventilation and air exchange will change the proportional relationship of the various gases in the air, increase harmful gases, and reduce useful gases, affecting the growth and development of orchids, making them prone to mold, rot diseases, and the like, and they may even suffer poisoning.

For houses, closed plastic sheds, or glass sheds, especially those heated with coal, when the indoor temperature exceeds 10°C, windows should be opened or the film lifted every day. In winter, in rooms tightly closed on all sides, an electric fan should also be used for directed exhaust ventilation at noon when the air temperature is high. The temperature in a greenhouse is generally high at the top and low at the bottom, so the air inlet should be at the lower part and the air outlet at the upper part; the ventilation speed is fast, and harmful gases are removed more thoroughly. Note that while ventilating, misting should be appropriate, the relationship among ventilation, warmth retention, and water replenishment should be handled well, and cold wind should be prevented from blowing directly.

The density of orchid pots placed indoors should be sparse rather than dense, and sufficient distance should be maintained. If the space is narrow, the flower bench can be built into a stepped shape. Attention should be paid to frequently washing the outer surface of orchid pots with water and spraying the front and back of orchid leaves to ensure smooth stomata.

4. Ventilation of pots and potting soil

1. Orchid pots should preferably be tall, high-footed, thin-walled, highly breathable clay pots; orchid pots with many holes in the pot walls and bottom can also be selected.

2. The growing medium or potting soil should preferably use a layered method. If potting soil is used, 2 to 3 small bricks can be used to cover the bottom hole of the pot, then a 3 cm thick layer of lump charcoal is spread on, then a mixed soil of decomposed humus soil and river sand is filled in up to 1/2 of the pot height, a 3 cm thick layer of burned cinder is added, and on top of that mixed soil is again covered up to the pot rim, so that the orchid pot has an environment in which gas can easily circulate.

3. The number of plants planted per pot should not be too many. If there are many plants and dense leaf clusters, they should be repotted and divided early, and weeds, diseased leaves, and dead leaves in the orchid pots should be frequently cleaned out to facilitate ventilation.