Cymbidium Divisioni

[Shiffdaddy]

Hello Orchid board,
This saturday one of my grandma's friends gave me a fairly large pot filled with cymbidium orchids. It needs to be divided since its basically breaking through the old pot it was in. I have never divided an orchid before so i am coming here for advice. This orchid has about 6 plants that have leaves growing from it and the "bulb" is greenish yellow. But throughout the middle in between these there are older bulbs which seem to have either died or gone dormant. My main question is should i seperate the plants so that each new pot has like one green bulb and a few of the dried bulbs or am i supposed to get rid of the old bulbs. I was told that i should keep them together since they help feed the main plant?. Anything that you guys feel is important would be appreciated. Thanks

[Zoi2]

Is it possible to post a picture or two?
Are you referring to each bulb as being a plant?
Joann

[Shiffdaddy]

I will be able to post a picture tonight when i get home from work. Yes each bulb is like a plant. When the plant dies (or goes dormant?) it loses its leaves and turns brown. So the pot looks like about 5 or 6 live plants surrounded by the older plants. So when i transplant should i keep the older plants or should i just take the living plants and plant them alone?

[WhiteRabbit]

that's all one plant - cyms are sympodial - they grow by developing new psuedobulbs.
I wouldn't advise dividing it. you can remove the "brown" older leafless pbulbs, but you can leave them, if they are firm, they aren't dead, and do support the plant.

[Cym Ladye]

When a Cymbidium has been in a pot for a number of years and the mix breaks down, as I expect yours has done because of the large number of leafless pseudobulbs termed back bulbs (BB's), it is recommended by most growers to divide the large plant so as to have several green bulbs with one or two BB's attached in each division. Place each of these new divisions in a clean pot leaving about 2" all around the division to the edge of the pot for future plant growth. Remove the roots from the attached BB's and cut the roots on the green bulbs to about 3" from the base of the green bulb to stimulate new root growth.

Extra BB's may be started in a number of ways (see earlier discussion on this forum) to produce new plants.

CL