Then Clint I need to take you a picture of a purparata I have mounted. Its got a steady stream of arials coming off the bottom of the treefern slab. Looks pretty neat. Also OUtsider, there are some orchids you do not even grow in a pot. May vanda orchids are just grown in a little pot to have something to hang the hanger on. All the roots are exposed and just hang out the pot. You will learn over time that you addapt your potting style to your growing conditions for your plants. Its alot harder to change the environment, and a little less dificult, but still hard to shange your habits. So the easiest, Atleast for me, is to change the media I grow a certain plant in or go from pot to mount, or mount to pot. I basicly change the way I house the plant to go with what the plant wants. So starting with a basic mix from lowes gives you a good baseline. Don;t forget to soak the bark for aboug an hour before you pot with it. The stuff is hard to wet sometimes. So you pot with the basic mix, and if you notice that you have a regular watering scedual, and you have multiple plants, but a few seem to dry out faster than others. Instead of spot watering you just pot the ones that dry out in a more water retentive mix unless they like drying out. For example if I grew a C, walkeriana(sp) I thin thats the species I am thinking of, but anywho that plant likes to stay really dry. So instead of skipping it when I waster I pot it in such a way that it will dry out really quickly like in a basket with aliflour or gravel or something like that. You want to think about the people who will take care of your plants when you go on vacation. Trust me you need to make it as simple as possible, or you could end up with some dead or very unhappy plants when you return. My GH is setup where on hot days it can be safely watered every 2 days with no harm done to the plants. So growing orchids IS NOT hard, it just takes a little learning. Feel free to ask any questions you wish. No question is a dumb one, and someone will be glad to help out. We all were newbies once, and had questions. In fact alot of my questions were answered when someone else already asked the question, or I read something for the sake of reading it, then that situation arrises I already have the answer. Good luck!