[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

I would say that one very good flushing under a running faucet for a while to get the salts out is ok, if followed by a rinse of good water. You may want to consider changing the salt you use in your softener tank to Potassium Chloride instead of Sodium Chloride. Potassium salt will not hurt your orchids unless you are growing some of the most sensitive orchids for water quality. Catts, Phals, Dens, Cyms, Oncidiums are fine with Potassium softened water, just flush often. You can still get salt build up from any mineral rich water.

Soft water can be water with low minerals, and I am sure this is what your author meant, or it can be synthetically softened. The minerals added to water by a softener are soft because they dissolve away easily. This means that when you flush the potassium out, it will flush out very easily, as opposed to calcium build up which is hard to flush out.