Chris: First, if you got them as Xmas gifts, I'm guessing they're in bloom.
If so, barring emergency, you probably want to wait until they go out of
bloom before repotting -- disturbing the roots of a blooming plant tends to
abort the flowers. When you do repot:

Whether clay is "better" than plastic depends on a lot of things. It does
dry faster -- which is good in a humid outdoor So. Fla. environment, but not
necessarily so good in a not-so-humid interior environment. Same with
potting media -- moss tends to stay wet a long time, lava rock or even bark
will dry faster; good in some situations for some plants, not-so-good in
other situations or for other plants.

What we recommend is varying your pots and mixes so as to keep as many as
possible of your plants on a single watering schedule. So, for example,
when you do repot, you may want to keep your Phal and Oncid in moss and
plastic, but move the Den. to lava rock and clay. Also, the Den and Oncid
need more light than the Phal.

Roots: you can see when they start to make new ones because they are at the
top of the media [right at the base of the plant].

Hope this helps,

--
Kenni Judd
Juno Beach Orchids

http://www.jborchids.com
"The Enigma" wrote in message
.com...
I got some orchids for Christmas and all of them are in plastic pots
which
are then placed in clay pots. My book says that clay should be used
because
it's dries better then plastic. So, should I take all my plants out of
the
clay pots then out of the plastic pots then replace them in the clay pot?

(clarify: right now the soil of my plant is in a plastic pot and then that
plastic pot is placed in a clay pot. So when you look at it from the side
it
looks like the plants in clay but from the top you see that inside the
clay
pot is a plastic pot which contains the roots and soil of the plant.)

Also if I have an Oncidium, Dendrobium, and Phal all in the southern
window
of the house getting a nice dose of direct sunlight (at least for the ones
closest to the window which are Dendrobium and Oncidium) is my set up ok?
Also they are all planted in moss is that ok?

Finally, when my book refers to growth there talking about what? (I know
I've asked this before but I didn't understand how root can be monitored
for
growth)

Thanks
Chris