Repot...please help with oncidium...

[Vanessa]

I was given this 'sharry baby' as a hostess gift. How in the world do i repot this thing?

[Ross]

Wow! That's a real root-bound orchid. If this were mine, I would select a pot a couple inches (max) bigger in diameter. I would soak the whole root mass in water to limber-up the roots (get them as flexible as you can.) Then I would tease the old bark out of that root mass. The idea is to get the whole root mass as free of bark as possible. Then I would study the whole plant to determine where the next growths will appear and attempt to get them as far from the new pot edges as possible, and still fit the plant in the pot. I would then start pouring the new bark mix into the pot while making sure the crown (the part of the plant that used to be at the surface of the mix) stays where the new mix will end up (the new "ground" surface). This almost takes 3 hands to do . Then I would bang the pot down onto the surface of a table to pack down the bark. If you attempt to do this like you would a begonia or something like that you will break off many of the roots. So you want to do a steady tap-tap on the table to shake the bark pieces down. After the last level is in place water it in and you should be good-to-go.

As a side note, all my repotting is done with potting mix designed for a particular species and that has been soaked several hours in a mix of RO water with Dynagro KLN mix (1 tsp/gal), Dynagrow Pro-Tekt (1 tsp/gal) and MSU mix (1 Tblsp/gal). This gets 'em goin'

[Vanessa]

Thanks once again Ross! I'll give it a go. Good thing I've got some time on my hands today.

[D&S Mabel]

Wow - the memories come flooding back!

I have the same plant and, 4 months ago, I actually had to cut the plastic pot away to get it to come off! Looked just like your.

Something to add to rsfrid's suggestions - I sat and slowly worked with the roots and got them un-clumped as much as I could. I did lose some but working them apart allowed the plant to sit lower and better in its new pot and the roots to spread out more easily in the medium.

Mine is just finishing its first blooming spray this year and has two more shoots coming up. Should bloom again in about 2 week. Nice fragance.

Good luck with your!

[Vanessa]

D&S Mable

I had to cut off the growers pot too! It took me close to an hour to get the bark free from being embedded inside the root system. What we won't do to save our orchids! I really wish growers would not let them get to this point to sell them. I've heard "sharry baby" is super hardy and hard to kill.......hoping that's the case. Thanks for the encouragement!

[Lagoon]

I understand what your saying, Vanessa. It use to get under my skin It's just simply not cost effective for them to continue to repot them time after time. Consider that Bigger pots, can reflect on price tag for us aswell.

I look at it this way ... Chances are I'm going to repot anyways since the media always seems pretty spent by the time I get it. So, repotting is bound to happen fairly soon. Also, I'd rather have a nice healthy root system to fight with instead of cutting off lots of rot.

Don't sweat it, enjoy your 'chid