Newly repotted phalenopsis - too much water?

[alison42]

Hi,

I had an orchid for my birthday last year - after looking on the internet, I thought it might be a good idea to repot it (some seem to advise doing this every year or two anyway, and gazing through the plastic, some of the roots did seem to be a bit mushy). Anyway, yesterday I did the deed, and my question is:
my orchid is in a new pot, with new medium (bark with volcanic rock) and very quickly there seemed to be condensation on the inside of the pot - is this a bad thing, or is this possibly a good way of seeing when to water it? (I am a predisposed to overwatering plants!)

[alison42]

this is the pot in question

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Does the plant have roots that are plentiful and extensive that it can just fit into the pot? Or does the potting medium take up more space than the roots?

[WhiteRabbit]

The condensation is fine - the clear pot is a good way to help see when plant needs water. Let it get to where it looks dry before watering again. Even with clear pots I like to use a bamboo skewer to check for moisture as I think relative humidity can make the pot 'look' dry even if there is moisture in it.

[alison42]

I'm not sure because I'm not entirely sure how much you would expect! (certainly it would have difficulty fitting in pot much shorter than the one it's in, but I don't know how much in the way of roots you would expect to see on - it didn't look like a huge amount of roots when I took it out of the first pot)
There's about an inch and a half of bark at the bottom of the pot, then a ring of roots about an inch deep. It seemed to take a lot of bark to fill in the gaps. The pot it is in is the one recommended by the garden centre, based on me giving an indication of the size of the old one (although I think measuring the diameter of the bottom of the old one was not, maybe, the best way of doing that!)

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

In potted culture, it's better to grow a Phalaenopsis potbound. Too much media could cause problems with over watering.

Sometimes, when I repot I put it back into the same size pot until they start showing signs of roots crawling out of the pot.

What size of wood chips are they small, medium, or large?

[alison42]

i would say the chips are probably small to medium

i have a picture of it in its old pot if that provides any helpful comparison - the roots were trying to escape through the bottom of the old one (which surprised me)

[RosieC]

It's a common mistake to think that when repotting an orchid it will need to go up a pot size.

With other plants this is usually the case, you repot, leave all the old medium where it is and add more arround the edge to fill the new bigger pot. The garden center might not realise the difference with orchids and give you advice on general house plant repotting.

A relative of mine recently made this mistake and left the previous Sphag in place and moved it to a larger pot. Luckily she gave me the plant a few days later and I quickly corrected the mistake and removed the now stinking sphag and put it in a much smaller pot.

When repotting a Phal you need to remove all the existing medium and then put it back in a pot just big enough to fit the roots in. This is often the same size pot, sometimes a smaller one if some of the old roots have rotted.

To be honest I have made the mistake of not moving up a pot size when I should have done. I should have realised when I had so much trouble getting it back in the pot that it needed to go up, but it's doing well still in the old pot so it can wait till next time I repot. This one SHOULD have gone up a pot size.

[RosieC]

Also, when I repot, I like to always arrange some roots so I can see them through the plastic pot. It helps to keep an eye on how the roots are doing after the upheaval and also helps measure watering.

[alison42]

Based on those pictures, mine would possibly have coped going back into the same pot! I was a little concerned about squashing the roots - is this a problem?