I actually did exactly that a couple of years ago. 1. I put some lava rocks at the bottom of the bowl, wet them and added a little water so that a half of them were submerged and at the same time wicked the moisture up to the top surface. 2. Then I planted two Haraella Odoratas in semi hydrophonic way (used two small plastic bottles from fruit juice - cut off 2/3 of the top and made some drainage holes 1/2 an inch from the bottom and used them as the 'pots'). 3. I placed them on top of the moist lava rocks inside the bowl AND (this is important)... placed a tiny fan INSIDE the bowl to circulate the air. I'm talking about one of those DC-powered (as opposed to the bigger AC-powered) fans, used to cool the inside of a laptops, etc - I don't remember how I got it but I believe electronic/computer parts/components stores sell them. This way the air got circulated and at the same time the moisture stays within the bowl (this is essential especially for those who live in Northern states where the humidity inside the house in the winter time is close to 20%) 4. I used a single 23 watt CFL as the primary source of light (used a desk lamp fixture) placed right on top of the opening of the bowl and set the timers for 12 hours. They bloomed constantly. Whenever I wanted to smell the fragrance, all I had to do was to sniff at the opening and bowl. It's easy, it's rewarding and cosmetically not too ugly of a setup. 5. I could take out the plants at anytime for watering, fertilizing or running it under water to clean the medium without polluting the rocks inside the bowl (no fertilizer or hard water deposit, especially if you used RO water to wet the rocks inside the bowl). I really hope you'd give your fish-bowl idea a try and please share with us of your findings and let us know if you come up with suggestions for improvement. Other than Haraella Odorata, I believe Dendrobium Distichum is also compatible for that setup (low light, and i heard the blooms smell like vanilla) good growing my fellow orchidgrowers, Dave

Marg, Can you tell us what kind of orchid it is? I didn't read through your post from last year, so I'm not sure what kind you have. But, I'm going to assume it's probably a phalaenopsis (moth) orchid. So, if I'm wrong in my assumption, some of this might no longer be relevant. Anyway, I'd say aerial roots are nothing of concern with most of your epiphytic orchids (the kind that grow in bark, moss). The only thing to check really is that the potting mix is fine and the roots that are in the pot are in good condition. If the mix is starting to break down, and the covered roots are dead or diseased, your plant may be developing aerial roots because the new roots are refusing to plant themselves down in toxic conditions. If the mix and roots look good, it should be taken as a compliment that your growing conditions are warm, humid, and breezy enough for the plant to directly expose it's naked roots to you! If your plant isn't a phal, though, and it happens to be a terrestrial species, then it might be a little more concern. If a paph is doing that, then most likely it needs to be repotted ASAP. However, there are some phrags that like to send out new growths on rhizomes that slant upward, causing the growths to develop so high out of the pot, that the roots effectively become aerial roots. So, even if your plant is terrestrial, it may not even be something to worry about.

Oh jeez, I started off with 2- a phal (12 blossoms!) and paph. I saw them in the orchid bark and thought- Gee whiz! I need to repot these in proper soil! So I repotted them in miracle gro potting soil. And put the phal in direct sun on a 90 deg. day. Stupid! It got sunburn and started dying immediately. I tried so hard to save it...spent 2 weeks just dragging its death out. I took it to the nursery- I didn't know diddly about orchids (obviously), potted it in the bark again, cut off the sunburned leaves, doused it with physan (it now had root rot, and I didn't even cut off the bad roots). The blossoms dropped immediately as well. Then I cut the spike, and cut more leaves because the infection was spreading. So then I was left with a pathetic looking plant, half spike and only 2 leaves. Then the crown starting to rot. I threw it out soon thereafter. It just got too depressing watching it die. I really wanted to save it- it was a get well present from my mother. It's amazing what we will do for these plants. Miraculously, the paph survived. Definitely learned a few lessons here! BTW- I really enjoyed some of these stories. I've only been at this 6 months, and I still feel rather thickheaded at times.

"Dahlias like vegetable fertilizer, which is typically low in nitrogen (the first number on the fertilizer package.) Use 5-10-10, 10-20-20, or the best would be 0-20-20." Dahlias need more nitrogen than this. There are posts on this forum about the "low nitrogen myth" Nitrogen washes out of soil and needs to be replenished every year. At the Bonneyville Dahlia trial garden sponsored by the American Dahlia Society they only use nitrogen as the fertilizer because their soil tests say that they have adequate pohosphorus and potassium in the soil. Without doing a soil test, most people should use something like the 5-10-10 or 10-20-20 but do so in moderation and do so several times in smaller amounts until about August 1st. Many people who have used fertilizer in their flower beds for several years will have a build up of phosphorus and should use fertilizer with low phosphorus. By the way, the new "greener" fertilizers are lower in phosphorus.