Trichicentrum cebolleta seedling

[Piao Liang]

I had posted this message in the beginners discussion but I think that maybe here it is more appropriate.

I received a Trichocentrum cebolleta seedling by the post. It came dry but I suppose that for this species this is not a problem. It is in a sort of sphagnum around the roots and thin wire? on top which I suppose is to hold the medium during transport.
I would like advice on repotting this orchid and watering frequency. There is very little information on the web concerning the care of this species and much less for seedlings. I know that people hang them in baskets or mount them as adult plants. I hope that somebody can answer. -
I have visited every forum, even the ones in Spanish and French. I know it needs dry periods between waterings and people grow adult plants either on a basket or mounted.

Since I had no answers anywhere,
I decided to go ahead and repot this orchid the best I could since it was starting to be in bad shape. If it works, this might help somebody else trying to grow this orchid.

I left the bark mix soaking overnight. I rinsed the Leca pebbles several times with running water. I rinsed the pebbles, sphagnum, bark mix in Physan (2.6 ml/ liter). I prepared a solution of 1/4 strength in Volvic water (for all ingredients) KLN, Kelpmax and my usual orchid fertilizer and soaked the bark mix and sphagnum in it for 10 min. I squeezed the sphagnum moss.

The orchid: took all of the old moss out. Since it was quite stuck to the roots I did it in the Physan solution. The roots looked ok except for maybe two that I decided to leave in there. I rinsed the roots with water then I let the orchid soak for 5 min in the diluted fertizer/rooting solution for 5 min.

The pot: I put the Leca pebbles in the bottom of the outer pot and filled with water. I put the bark mix in the bottom of a pot used for "faisselle" (fresh cheese) which has slits on the side.

Repotting: I put part of the roots in the bark mix and then covered them with the prepared Sphagnum moss. I will water it when the moss is dry. I also left a bamboo skewer to help me know if the medium is not dry enough.

I got another seedling of this orchid in a flask I got from Costa Rica. I had only one seedling! Since there was no information on deflasking this orchid I had to read a lot and put together all of the information to deflask it. The procedure I followed with the grown up seedling is based on this. So far so good, the seedling from Costa Rica has 11 days since I deflasked it and it looks good. If this works, I will post the complete procedure for deflasking this species.

Here are photos of the "older seedling" and the 11 days old deflasked seedling from Costa Rica. Also a photo of the roots of the older seedling.
I would like to know if anybody has any experience with these and if I am doing ok. Many thanks!!