Knowing the physiology of the orchid you are growing can go a long way toward knowing when and how to repot. So let's say you take your phal or catt or dendrobium out of the pot and the media has started to break down and you are going to repot it in fresh media. You choose medium bark with (take your pick of many different kinds of other additives) and you know to pot it in the same or "slightly" larger pot. You look at the roots and they are all tangled with one another and run round and round the bottom or sides of the pot. My choice is to take large tweezers and a wooden skewer to pick out and tease out the old media taking great care to not break or otherwise damage the roots especially the root tips. If some of the old media is left within the root mass I don't worry about it too much. Then I clean the root mass and put it back in the pot. Then I add the media in making sure to settle it well. Now for what I do as opposed to what others may do. If there are voids in the root mass that won't allow new media to enter and fill, I don't worry about it. If no media gets into those voids like underneath the rizome or crown base, I don't worry about it. These are for the most part, epiphytes. These are not like terrestrial plants that need soil encasing the roots. These are orchids which grow on tree limbs and tree trunks. If no media gets into the voids because the roots are too tangled, then that is ok because there will be moisture penetrating the entire root mass/media anyway and that is all that really matters. Keeping the root mass intact with little to no damage is the most important thing in repotting. I don't try to force apart the root mass to fill the voids because it isn't necessary. Keeping any damage to a minimum is.
|
Linear Mode
