Thanks for your comments and since it's working great, I have intention of fixing it. What prompted me to do this post was the Xmas plant I brought home from our annual Xmas party. It's a Pot Red Crab 'Kuau Miau' AM/AOS from Kawamoto. It's in a 4" pot with bark and has a bunch of roots outside the pot. The roots took a major beating from the travel but it will reform them since it's on that course. Point is that repotting is only essential to plants that require the inside of the pot for survival. If there are no roots outside the pot and the inside is unhealthy, you have a problem. If on the other hand there is a plethora of roots outside the pot, the plant no longer needs a healthy interior of the pot and will grow quite nicely with the outside roots. This plat is in healthy new bark yet it has lots of outside roots. I plan to just put it in a empty larger pot and never repot it or replace the bark. End of story. 27 years from now it may well look like the Daffodil and get there with a minimum of work other than proper light, temp, water and nutrient. I make a big point of this when I give my Orchids 101 lectures at our show. Give them good conditions and otherwise let them do their thing. Nick

Arthrum: good point, the temps in my house are only kept above 65 degrees, but it still seems that some temperature hardy plants still show dislike of my repotting... Dbarron: oh my! Sounds like a tragedy! I get upset enough when I break of a new shoot! Vtandrea: thanks for the suggestion! I'll definitely try it on one of my oncidiums! Jane: I live in the Oakland hills in the SF Bay Area. I grow almost all my indoor orchids in the same spot, positioned around a fireplace to control the amount of light. The facing of the house isn't the best. 80% of the light is late morning to afternoon sun . 90% of the windows are west facing :( like the house... The problem might be I repotted at the wrong time. I didn't a lot of reporting in the winter/ late fall (whoops...)

"The bigger the pot the bigger the plant isn't necessarily true", but probably is true in far more cases than it's untrue. How large a plant can get in a given pot depends more on how roots are managed than how large the pot is. Also, the bigger the pot (you bump it to), the greater the potential for over-potting, which is something you probably should avoid going into winter. I wouldn't "repot" until mid to late June. While you can pot up at nearly any time, as long as you're reasonable in your soil choice and pot size, there are still better times than others to pot up. Those times are the same times it's best to repot, and the reasons are similar. Potting up in June is less risky because the plant will be in the most robust part of the growth cycle, which means roots will colonize the new soil faster than any other segment of the growth cycle, which is an advantage for the plant. That said, repotting is much to be preferred over potting up ....... as long as the timing is appropriate. One practice eliminates all limitations associated with root congestion, the other practice ensures the limitations remain a part of the plant's existence until such time that you actually reach into the root mass with your hands/tools and correct the condition. Al

What I'm about to say may or may not be true, as I'm going to make a guess that's beyond the limits of what I can support w/o doing some research. It IS true that fungal, bacterial, and viral infections are capable of moving in either direction (upward or downward). Woody plants, it was discovered (by Alex Shigo Ph.D.), compartmentalize diseased or injured parts of the plant to prevent spread of disease and decay, see CODIT. I believe, but am not 100% sure, that more herbaceous (as opposed to more woody) plant material is less efficient at walling off injury and decay, and roots are more susceptible to decay than parts that occupy spacial positions above ground. W/o being able to examine roots, next best thing is to try to figure out a way to test moisture levels deep in the pot so you can water only when appropriate. I suppose you could regularly pinch the leaves gently to test their turgidity, but by the time the leaves are getting soft, the plant has already suffered some measure of drought stress. Still, a little drought stress is to be much preferred to a rhizosphere where conditions are benefic to bacterial and fungal assailants. If available where you are, Tebuconazole or products that contain it can be used as an anti-fungal systemic soil drench. There might be other systemic fungicides available if the one above is not, and they would be more effective than topical fungicides like cinnamon, flowers of sulfur, et al. Al