Vandas potted into clay pots

As I am getting more and more vandas and watering them every day in a vase becomes a full time job, I decided to experiment with potting them.
For experiment I have chosen two adult ones - Ascda Princess Mikasa and V. Roberts Delight because:
- they have strong foliage and look pretty robust comparing to seedlings;
- they are pretty common and will be easier to replace then my vanda species if something goes wrong;
- they were in the largest vases and required the most work to water everyday.
So, I trimmed the roots to curl them into unglazed clay pots. Put lots of packing p-nuts to about half pot depth and topped them with a haNdful of large bark pieces for asda and chc for vanda.
I am planning to water them every third day but will mist the exposed roots daily. After sometime I might modify this routine. Hope it will work.
Here is what came out of it:

Dreadful scale on ascocenda

I didn't finish yet to enjoy the blooms of my new Ascda Princess Mikasa Blue - and here comes the trouble - scale. The worst thing I had on my orchids before - mealies on the Angraecum sesquipedale that came ironically from the show too. Now - Princess with scale.
First I saw it on the flowers - brownish round shell covering small insect sucking the life out of my blooms:



Close inspection of each leaf revealed one more bug:



There was also some big bug on the flowers too. I don't know if it is related to scale - maybe he eats them(?), here it is:



I cut off the flowering stem completely and threw it away, scraped with alcohol the bug on the leaf and gave whole plant a warm bath in the water with dishwashing liquid bubbles. I don't know if soapy water wll kill the roots, but they were in the bath too.

Disturbing thought about other orchid in close proximity made me put my V. Robert's Delight through the soapy bath too (just in case). Both of them are somewhat isolated from other 'chids.

I read that scale is hard to get rid of without chemicals. Will see if it is true, maybe should go buy some insecticide. Oh, bother...

During research I found this great visual presentation on many orchid pests here: Pests of Orchids

Ascda Princess Mikasa Blue in full bloom

All the flowers are open, so I couldn't resist to take another picture of my Princess. Camera wouldn't cooperate, so color is bluish again. In the real life there is more purple in her blooms although I like this blue better.
Now I just need to buy pink and white versions of this wonderful orchid.

Ascocenda Princess Mikasa Blue again

Just one more picture of the blooms:



I really like the shape of the flowers. Much cleaner than floppy blooms of my Roberts Delight, but also smaller.

My blooming Princess

My Ascocenda Princess Mikasa Blue is blooming now. Only first flower is fully open. It is beautiful, I am so happy with my purchase.



I like the effect of transmitted light on this picture:



And this bloom color is the closest to the real life color (a bit purplish, not sky blue as above), although picture itself is not the best:

Ascocenda Princess Mikasa Blue

Large plant of Ascocenda Princess Mikasa Blue came with me from the Montreal show too. It has a spike. I wanted it for a while but didn't want to mailorder since I wanted to choose it - large with nice foliage and since it is quite common - I knew I could buy it in person on the show.
Here it is in a vase:



Spike close up: