Repotting out of sphagnum moss-- how do I get rid of it???

[rosemadder]

It's EVIL.

Horrible horrible, awful, despicable substance!

So when you repot, the idea is to remove as much of the old media as possible, right? HAH.

Many of my new orchids that I'm switching over to S/H came to me potted in sphag moss. I take them out of the pot to find the contents a nearly impenetrable mass of tightly bound roots totally packed with long-fiber sphag. It's actually hard to tell sometimes what's a root and what isn't. Any time I pull on a piece of sphag, it's wrapped around lots of roots and tries to cut into them or snap them on its way out. Even if it does pull out smoothly, it comes out a bald string after leaving all of its fuzz behind, lodged between roots. I've tried blasting it out with water from the hose. I've spent literally hours with a pair of tweezers trying to pick this stuff out from between the roots as carefully as I can, but I still end up feeling like I've probably done a ton of damage to the orchid's roots, and I probably missed some globs of sphag that are going to sit there at the base of the plant getting soggy from all the readily available moisture in S/H and eventually cause some kind of rot.

I hate it. I hate it. KILL IT WITH FIRE.

[Ordphien]

I used to hate it too....
I've now learned I actually like the stuff and its very useful in my home.
But getting getting it out of those pots is a pain.

I normally soak the orchid for a good long while and pick as much as I can out with my fingers. After that I use a wooden skewer...

For some reason that works best for me.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

[AnonYMouse]

I use a cheap synthetic-bristle craft paint brush (get a set of them for a few $ at Michaels).

Soak, untangle with fingers and brush off the fluff.

ETA: I wouldn't worry too much about bits of moss. You're going to lose some/lots of root mass as the plant adapts to the new environment and the moss will flush out with the root debris I would think.

[james mickelso]

Tackle the task when the moss/rootball is dry. It shrinks. And becomes brittle. Start at the bottom and work your way up. Untangle as much as you can but leaving some in isn't that big a deal. And damage to the roots will heal and new roots will form at the spot that is damaged.

[Wild Orchid]

I use similar approach as others - soak a Phal for quite a bit and sometime tease the fibers under the water in a bowl. Somehow water makes it easier to untangle fibers (I try not to pull at roots) and get to the centre. And yes, I also use skewers to push those stubborn fibers out from the places where my fingers can't reach.
I usually have a cup of coffee with me and take breaks as this is definitely one of those tasks where... patience is a virtue....

[rosemadder]

Yeah I've been trying it wet, but if I have to do this again (twitch... shudder!) I'll test drying it out first.

The phals have been much easier than the others, nice thick simple roots. For my Fdk. After Dark (a Catasetum type), and my Dendrobium kingianum, the roots are about as thick as spaghetti or angelhair pasta, and knotted around each other in an atrocious way.

Thanks for the reassurance, guys. I certainly hope my plants are strong enough and I can care for them well enough so they recover from the transition without too much agony.

[NYCorchidman]

Wet the whole thing and then gently handpick them out. Should be tedious but easy job to do.

Or you can put the root with moss intact in a large bucket of water. then gently swirl the plant around and moss should come right off.

I also like sphagnum moss for my phals, but most of them come super tightly packed. So when I repot, I take them all off but put in back but loosely packed.

[rosemadder]

Gentle swirling didn't cut it. So I used the garden hose outside, on the "Jet" setting. Even THAT barely budged it.

For my Trader Joe's phals, I was able to just pluck the moss off with no fuss at all, but these other two with the tightly knotted skinny roots have been an absolute nightmare!

[james mickelso]

For those rescues I get it usually is easy to work from the bottom up. Most of the roots are on the outside and I start at the bottom inside and work up and out. I use tweezers mostly.

[gnathaniel]

Great roots! Sphagnum isn't always the easiest to repot from, but it's a breeze to pot INTO and used right it encourages great roots/healthy orchids.

The plant looks like Catasetinae? You could just take some sharp (sterile!) shears, lop off the bottom half or more of that root mass, and pick out whatever you don't want from the middle; or do the swirl method after the chop, that works well for me. The old roots may give you rot problems if you're potting into S/H, plus it's going to grow tons of new roots over the next few months anyway. Good luck!