Yup. Just stick it in the sink and let the water run through it or, if outdoors, hit it with the hose and just keep watering for a few minutes. You should do this every month or so if you fertilize on a regular basis.

Jane

I like to soak my orchid for a couple minutes prior to doing what Jane mentioned above to leach out any possible salts from the growing medium. Not sure if it actually has an effect, but can't hurt ;P

Try to use filtered/reverse osmosis/distilled water if possible.

Soaking orchids in the same water is risky. Orchids can and will pass diseases especially virus. Letting the water run through like Jane says does the trick...

I meant soaking each orchid in an individual container. Should have specified earlier.

Goldstar, you still save water if you soak each orchid in it's own cup/bowl of water versus running water through it. This is my preferred way to do it as well and then running a little bit of water through afterwards. If the medium is broken down quite a bit, I don't soak it because it would become too soggy.

Yeah, that's how I normally water/fertilize my orchids. It saves water, guarantees that all parts of the media are wet, and allows the roots to soak up all the water they can hold. I find that running water through can sometimes leave dry spots that I can't reach.

I'm lucky. I have around 200 plants. The majority in captivity. 5 to 10% in the trees around the house. TO water or fertilize it takes me 10 plus minutes. Another 5 or 10 to get the outside chids. Cold, below 50 works me. The colder it gets the more work it causes. The worst and most demanding is preparing and replacing for hurricanes. I just de-winterized and rolled up the plastic curtains. Moved the vandas.

I don't soak when I fertilize. I only do the soak to remove salts. I use a 1 gallon bottle with a spray nozzle for fertilizing. I guess it depends on which plant I'm dealing with. Some live as decoration so they are treated differently than non-decorative plants.

When I lived in NY and grew lots of orchids in the house, I would cart them in batches into the kitchen, put them in the sink and let the water run through them for a few minutes. I had over 100 orchids so this task took me most of the afternoon. I would wash out the humidity trays and place the batch of orchids back to their spots. Tray after tray of orchids got carried to the sink for good rinsing.

Growing indoors during the winter creates problems. The dry air dries out the bark or sphag quickly, making it hard to water and fertilize as the media gets so dry it won't hold water without a good soaking. Also, I felt the dry bark led to more of a salt buildup. Flushing is important to protect the roots.

Now, living in Florida, its a bit different, quite a bit. I can hit them all with the garden hose until they are well soaked and drain out. The bark does not dry out in the same way as it did in NY. Even though winter in Florida is the dry season with hardly any rain for months, there is humidity which helps the plants from totally drying out.

No matter where you live, it is important to flush the pots to prevent salts from building up where they damage roots.

Jane