Should I divide and repot my cat?

[orchids44]

court b,

Repotting in the Spring was some advice I received several times from friends in a local orchid society. Their specialty is Catts with many years (25 - 40) experience. Some don't repot until the end of May! They have had disaster results with repotting even in April.

Good luck, she is a healthy giant

[bil]

Originally Posted by euplusia

If you listen to 5 people, you get 10 opinions, that's normal. If this were my plant, I'd divide it into 2 plants once new roots start growing. Reason is that there is an optimum pot size.

Like I say, I can't remember the quoted number, however I do observe that most of the Catts I have bought have had5 bulbs. Now, the one pictured has in excess of 10, so yes, logic indicates that it is dividable. The question is, will you get a better return in terms of flowers from a bigger pot? Especially if you use a shallow enough container to avoid the problems of staying too wet in the middle.

[Daethen]

Up to you, but I would not divide. I have one that i bought 2 years ago that is just beautiful in bloom. It had 2 spikes when I got it. Rebloomed with one since and I just noticed that it now has 3 new spikes developing. They give you a bigger better display if you can let them get bigger. Definitely needs to be potted up into a bigger pot. If you are worried about it being top heavy, you can either use clay (mine love this but attach to the pots pretty securely) or use a large plastic pot and put some heavy lava rock in the bottom so that the roots don't stay wet too long.

[Fairorchids]

As previous poster said, one of the reasons for dividing, is to get a seconf plant (to trade, sell or gift).

A. Lead division should be min 4-5 mature bulbs. Any backbulb divisions could be as few as 3 bulbs, but then it may take 3-5 years to grow whatever it produces to blooming size.

B. In std repotting, in order to keep pot sizes reasonable, I often trim abt 2 years of growth off the backbulbs, IF they are leafless.

If the trimmed bulbs have roots, and the plant is something special, I might still put those bulbs in a small pot with pure spaghnum, just to see whether it will produce a shoot. I find that 2 out of 3 do.