Drop-potting a Phal into a different pot type

[Fuzzy]

Hi all. I have a Phal Surf Song that just finished blooming. The Phal is clearly thriving and is in active growth now - a new leaf is peeking out, and all the roots are lengthening and have long green healthy tips. The Phal was in sphag in a clay pot, which was working well for my dry climate-controlled NYC highrise (the humidity here is about 30-45% only). I typically watered it every 8-10 days thoroughly and misted the aerial roots and undersides of leaves daily. This seemed to be working well and the Phal was happy, indeed so happy that it was clearly getting too large for the pot! The roots were starting to choke on the bottom of the pot and they completely clogged the only opening...

So, to make the long story short, I drop potted my Phal today from its 5" clay pot into a 6" "oxygen duo" pot (from repotme). It's basically a net pot inside a clear plastic pot with holes on the bottom. The Phal is still in sphag. The big question is, did I make the right call? Should I have gone for another clay pot since the Phal seemed to love it so much? Will this very airy pot dry out my Phal? How do I adjust my watering now? I usually just went by the feel of the moss and watered when it was almost, but not completely, dry.

Thanks for your help, I'm still new to orchids. I'm attaching a couple of pics of the Phal in its new home (in one of them you can see the brand new leaf). I hope I did no harm.

[MattWoelfsen]

Hi Fuzzy! Your Phalaenopsis looks very good in its new pot. One thing you should be aware of--your plant will like this one very much BUT next year, when all the roots have grown through the net pot, you 'll have a real challenge on your hands. I am facing this problem with my own similar pot. I'll probably take the chicken's way out and just cut away the net pot rather than trying to carefully pull out the roots.

[Fuzzy]

Matt, thanks for your comment. I actually found out the hard way that Phal roots STICK to clay pots! I was ever so careful to pull my Phal out of clay, yet I still broke one root tip. Oh well. But thanks for the tip, I would probably just cut open the net rather than try to pull out the roots. The replacement net pots are cheap.

[jmmehler]

Another advantage is that whenever you are in doubt about whether it needs watering or not, just pick it up. You will become more intune with the plant just by its weight.

[Ray]

The only thing I might have done differently is to replace the sphagnum. Moss is not the most stable potting medium, and it can start to decompose seemingly overnight.

Many growers recommend replacing it every 6 months; I tend to go about a year, unless I see it compressing too much.

I do have a question: why to you mist the undersides of the leaves? Phals are CAM plants, so the stomata are closed in the daytime, precluding any possible uptake.

[Leafmite]

I like using expanded clay pellets for my phals, along with the net pots. For the smallest seedlings, I put a bit of moss on top to help the roots adjust to the new medium but it gets removed when the roots have gone into the other medium. The roots happily grow outside of the net pots and when they need a larger pot, I will just drop the entire thing into a large pot and add more of my medium.

[Fuzzy]

Ray, thanks for the comments. The reason I didn't change the moss is because I had a bad experience before repotting a Phal in active growth. It all but stopped growing, the new leaf stalled and ended up very small, and eventually I lost the plant. It might have been a fluke, but I didn't want to chance it again.

As for misting the leaves, I was under the impression that misting the undersides help maintain good humidity in a low-humidity environment. I don't know how much they actually absorb, but they are looking pretty nice and turgid, and I credit the misting for that.

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[Ray]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

The reason I didn't change the moss is because I had a bad experience before repotting a Phal in active growth. It all but stopped growing, the new leaf stalled and ended up very small, and eventually I lost the plant. It might have been a fluke, but I didn't want to chance it again.

You're certainly not alone!

The applicable concept is that roots "tailor" themselves to the conditions they are in as they grow, and once they are grown they cannot change. When you change potting media, you are changing the environment, so the roots that were optimized for the old one may not be for the new one. If the plant is not actively growing new roots to pick up where the old ones are leaving off, there can be issues, as the old roots are just not able to keep up with the needs of the plant.

Two things to consider about that though: 1) the degree of difference between the root zone environments controls the severity of the change, and 2) very often, going from the old to the new version of the same medium is an improvement - the old roots grew into that medium when it was fresh, so will be in better shape to accept "fresh again" upon the change.

[DeaC]

Originally Posted by Fuzzy

Matt, thanks for your comment. I actually found out the hard way that Phal roots STICK to clay pots! I was ever so careful to pull my Phal out of clay, yet I still broke one root tip. Oh well. But thanks for the tip, I would probably just cut open the net rather than try to pull out the roots. The replacement net pots are cheap.

For sticky phal. roots, I emerse the pot in a bucket of warm water,even overnight, and that loosens roots enuf or I use the dull,rounded side of the label to coax them free and root loss is nill or very slight.

[Fuzzy]

Hello all, I thought I should update this thread. I'm attaching a picture of the roots of my phal in its new pot about 3 weeks after drop-potting. This was a few days ago and they are getting longer every day! The new leaf is also coming in nicely, see second pic. Given that this phal is very healthy and growing rapidly, I have decided to try to rebloom from the old spikes, and clipped both spikes (yes, it had two) down to the top node a few days ago. We'll see see what happens! Basically, overall I am pleased with the repotting and the dual core pot so far.