Dendrobium potting

[Cattleya234]

I have a huge den 'caesar' that I need to repot. It’s super root bound, and the media has broken down to the point of looking like soil. The roots are still healthy, but if I don’t repot soon they won’t be. What’s a good media for this hybrid? I heard that they like lots of water, but like to dry out fast. Would a moss/bark mix be good for it? Or moss/lava rock or leca? Hope you can help!

[estación seca]

It depends on your growing conditions, and how you water. Extra large Dens do well with large chunk bark or clay LECA balls. They don't need sphagnum moss unless you're trying to stretch the watering interval as long as you can.

Excellent growers of large Dens in our local society just slip the plant out of the pot, shake gently to remove the loosest medium, then set into a new pot 3-4" / 7.5-10cm larger in diameter. They fill in around to old root ball with new medium. Don't damage roots trying to pry out old medium. They have various huge Dens growing in pots with either very large bark, LECA or landscape gravel. They use whatever they have on hand when repotting.

Sometimes they don't even take the plant out of the old pot if the plant is growing over the edge. They just set the whole pot in a larger pot and backfill with medium.

[Bombotany]

Agreed with estación seca. I would add that fertilization is more important than potting medium altogether. Use what you have on hand, don't sweat it too much, but make sure you're fertilizing if you want an orchid to remain healthy in the long-term.

[Cattleya234]

Thank you!

[SouthPark]

Originally Posted by Cattleya234

I heard that they like lots of water, but like to dry out fast.

Good questions - although we know that orchids don't have brains, so they can't do something such as 'like' or 'not like'.

Just treat them as systems or factories 0 ----- where we have to give them suitable conditions and inputs to operate and function properly. If we don't provide them suitable conditions, then parts of that system can stop working, and break down ----- fail, which can then make other things or the the whole system fail.

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