Cattleya repotting best medium - ? soaking medium before planting

[Skippersmom]

My Catt- Ric. Chen Ya Lantern 'Ri Rin', is the one I wrote about last week that has been living in water for months but has new growth and nodes.

So I have 2 medium options:
1) RePotMe - All purpose monteray bark Imperial orcid mix
2) RePotMe - Cattleya Imperial orchid mix.

My sophisticated observational analysis = rocks, bark and spheres. The Catt in question has had a soak in KelpMax - but I am wondering if the medium needs a soak in the same solution
- as there are essentially no roots of note, should a very light wrap of sphagnum go along the rhizome and then into the medium, just to hold some moisture? Or will keeping moisture around the edges w/ only occasional center spritzing, encourage the plant to 'seek' moisture and put out roots?

It is going into a Carousel pot.

Thank you in advance for the expertise that you are willing to share.

[Keysguy]

How often do you want to water?
The more water, the coarser and better draining the media needs to be.
I grow outdoors. My large specimen Catts are in large chunk Rexius. Medium size ones are in medium chunk Rexius. My small Catts like seedlings. etc. that aren't mounted are in orchiata.
They get lots of water all summer during their growing season. Sphagnum is a plant killer where I grow. Prevents air from getting to roots and causes rot. Only sphag I use is some individual strands sprinkled throughout the mix I use for my Phrags.

That being said......I buy plenty of seedling from reputable houses that are potted in nothing but sphag. I suspect because if they do that they save a ton of $ on water and labor.

My guess is you are going to want to be somewhere in between those two extremes.

ps- I do not soak the bark because they get so much water. Most GH and windowsill growers I know have to soak it first because they water so seldom, it will never hold any moisture if they don't.
Sphag? Soak it good!

[WaterWitchin]

Originally Posted by Skippersmom

My Catt- Ric. Chen Ya Lantern 'Ri Rin', is the one I wrote about last week that has been living in water for months but has new growth and nodes.

So I have 2 medium options:
1) RePotMe - All purpose monteray bark Imperial orcid mix
2) RePotMe - Cattleya Imperial orchid mix.

My sophisticated observational analysis = rocks, bark and spheres. The Catt in question has had a soak in KelpMax - but I am wondering if the medium needs a soak in the same solution
- as there are essentially no roots of note, should a very light wrap of sphagnum go along the rhizome and then into the medium, just to hold some moisture? Or will keeping moisture around the edges w/ only occasional center spritzing, encourage the plant to 'seek' moisture and put out roots?

It is going into a Carousel pot.

Thank you in advance for the expertise that you are willing to share.

Kind of what KeysGuy says. My guess is you're not in same area as him. So yes, soak your medium first. And if there are "essentially no roots of note" do as what you ask... "should a very light wrap of sphagnum go along the rhizome and then into the medium, just to hold some moisture? Or will keeping moisture around the edges w/ only occasional center spritzing, encourage the plant to 'seek' moisture and put out roots" Either or both... depending on the time you want to spend spritzing it. Potting up without much root will be a challenge, and you need to just keep watching the roots.