Making my own ventilated pots!

[Phonelady]

Hi Everyone,

I saw someone's experiments with a soldering iron and plastic pots, trying to keep them ventilated, and decided to do my own.
Here there's not much in the way of stores so using a little imagination, I turned food leftover containers and some effort with a powerdrill into ventilated pots!

[bil]

Well, yes that will work, but it is far simpler to only use pots o containers that are only 4 inches deep at max for fine bark. That eliminates the problem.

Deeper media will stay wet. break down and compact faster. I found that really shallow fine bark, ie 3 inches or less after 3 years was almost like new.

[rbarata]

For a pot that deep I would drill bigger holes.
But that's ok, good iniciative.

[Orchid Whisperer]

Originally Posted by bil

Well, yes that will work, but it is far simpler to only use pots o containers that are only 4 inches deep at max for fine bark. That eliminates the problem.

Deeper media will stay wet. break down and compact faster. I found that really shallow fine bark, ie 3 inches or less after 3 years was almost like new.

Far simpler for people that have to grow indoors much of the year to create more holes in a regular pot, similar to what Phonelady has done.

[estación seca]

You live in a low-humidity environment, as do I. I would recommend that, if you use large chunks of bark, you not drill holes in your pots. Unless you have a lot of time to water every day, your plants are going to dry out quite rapidly, even without the extra holes. As you get more and more plants you will have less and less time to care for each individual plant. It makes sense to use a pot/medium combo that is good for the plants, yet doesn't require near-daily watering.

[Ray]

Throwing in my "two cents": buy a drill bit intended for plastics (usplastics.com has them). Melting plastics give off some pretty noxious fumes.

[greenpassion]

Can't say for sure, but I believe it was me that said said pics of homemade ventilated pots. As far as fumes go it is not a problem. I sit in my garage. And most of my pots are no deeper than 4 inches. And as es said, my smaller ones do dry out quite a bit faster, and there are several that I water every day but I don't mind. Tending to them as what I like to do on my time off, and spending the extra time watering is fine with me. It appeals to me these pots with extra ventilation because I think it's closer to the culture that the Orchid wants. And I also like to make my own design with holes and slits as well. It's kind of fun.

[greenpassion]

Here are a few of my smaller ones.

[Joseia]

Originally Posted by Ray

Throwing in my "two cents": buy a drill bit intended for plastics (usplastics.com has them). Melting plastics give off some pretty noxious fumes.

I nearly passed out and felt sick for hours first time I melted plastic ice cream containers to reuse as orchid pots. Did it in the kitchen and that was a big mistake. If you must melt, do it outdoors with a strong fan behind you to blow those fumes away from you.

[greenpassion]

Yeah. It needs to be done Outdoors. I just sat in a chair with my garage door open out in the driveway there and I did several ahead of time so I won't have to do any through the winter. I enjoy doing it😊