Sonja

As for the open root holder systems of just pillars, they require lots of spraying or bucket dunking which is a mess and cant be done regulary if you leave home for several days to travel sometimes. I have no ridiculous high humidity inside the flat any longer - I worked hard for that as you know and am proud of it being gone - , also I got no trustable relatives or friends next door. I am really best of with a semi-translucent overpot with a holey root pot inside and ample wall space between the two as much bottom space to be able to water a ditch below the plant with roots hanging out into the damp area above water getting dimmed down daylight, and of course check regulary that no algae develop in the microclimate.
The lady at the gardeners seemed very knowledgable and was nice altough the plant was not from their store initially (I strongly suspect it's from somewhere my husband would go incidently past flowers anyway , you know, like the builders store or the grocery next to his workplace).
At that garden store I was sold a coloured glass basin roomier and especially taller than the ceramic pot from the gift assemble, one that got a high cone inside on which the inner holey pot thrones high above the water line. It looks neat and holds the the humidity inside so it is always a bit like in a temperate rain forest. Overtpots like this are sold from the cheapest plexi press to marbled handcrafted stuff from Italy, so its easy to find one that fits the budget, the style of the home and the blossom colours. The lady told me to remove the plant about once a month, drain and clean the glass out with really hot water and a cleaner-free bottle brush, just like a thermos transporter for hot tea, then put at first an all new plant food stick down into the ditch, not into the roots. Fill in clear water as needed to keep the ditch well filled but have the level if possible never touching the holey inner pot. So far the flower seems to love it, how ever I have each month a lot of the nutrient stick still floating around to throw away, it never dissolves a lot. I have to wonder if she just wants me to buy sticks more often or if orchid sticks really get spent without dissolving like the green plant sticks. She told me however to not buy the liquid nutrition as if one has only one orchid and needs no more than 0,2 l water mixture, as soon as the collection is 5 orchids or more it is just fine, but making the minimum infused water from concentrate with the shot cup and keep for months to use up does no good, and nutrifying a cup of water with an eyedropper never gets the job right. The stick package tutorial says however "put into the soil all 3 months". What soil, as I am not supposed to plant a moth orchid into soil??? Well, if the lady recomends the stuff and says to just let it float it below the roots... but then I get that wet nutrition stick that looks almost still intact into the compost bin each month.... On the stick package is a fancy list of teensy tiny amounts of chemicals, among them different mysterious forms of urea formaldehyde that only disolve in warm respective cold water. As I am just a housewife without a doctorate in chemistry I wonder if this is why the mixture mostly keeps it's shape because I never cook or freeze my poor flower of course.
It's really odd, but I guess you get different products for gardening than us here.