Dendro with spots

[Dollythehun]

I put some of my latouria types in a moss mix. I have trouble watering them enough too. I sterilize with Lysol Power N Free. I run my well water through a water pitcher or use rainwater. I make 5 gal at a time.

[SaraJean]

Originally Posted by SundayGardener

Are you all using Physan to disinfect pots, surfaces and tools? So far I've been using bleach with detergent and water for pots and plastic tubs and so on, and either a flame or rubbing alcohol for metal snippers.

It’s just a preference. I have over 200 orchids now and so if I’m doing a bunch of repotting I’ll mix up 2 gallons of physan and have a bowl for my tools, a bowl for my inorganic media I can sterilize and reuse, a bowl for a sponge to wipe surfaces, ect...the main thing is: I just don’t use it as a treatment on my orchids, I think there are more effective products out there (like Clearys for a fungicide), but if cultural issues are addressed first you shouldn’t need them all that often.

The lava rock size sounds good. Most of my Latourias are grown in lava rock or LECA that’s slightly larger but my environment is waaaaaaay humid and they get watered every day

[SundayGardener]

No, I'm never going to have New Orleans style humidity, but I was able to turn off the humidifiers finally with all the rain we're getting.

I'll look at the media it came in and try to replicate it, so if I see bark I'll use that, I think I do see perlite. It's very gritty, so I suspect there is some kind of inorganic material.

Dollythehun, we started buying water about a decade ago when there were some issues with safety and quality of the municipal supply. Nothing like Flint Michigan, but enough for concern. Nowadays our tap water is heavily chlorinated. I did collect over 40 gallons of water from snow, and I did use most of it, boiling it, but I didn't have a plan for storing it going into that project, other than having it loosely covered in 5 gallon buckets in the basement. I'll have to look more closely at rain barrels.

[Dollythehun]

If you search for rain water in the purple search box, you'll see some very inexpensive, ingenious ways member collect rainwater.

[SundayGardener]

I unpotted the dendro today. I've attached pictures (huge) of the roots and potting media. I think the roots look great? The roots were moist and so was the media; I last watered yesterday. Media includes bark and perlite.

Because the roots didn't look bad (to me) and repotting will most likely be a daunting task (the roots are very attached to the bigger pieces of bark, and are also quite thick), I didn't replace the media. I don't know if you can tell from the photos, a few pieces of bark were soft but I didn't get the impression that its rotting.

[Dollythehun]

Nice roots.

[Roberta]

In repotting generally (all genera) , if bark (or other medium) is attached to the roots, leave it. Won't hurt anything, but trying to remove it is very likely to damage those roots. Just clean up the stuff that comes off easily, maybe give a gentle rinse, then add the new medium.

[SaraJean]

Nice roots Now just pot that in something like the lava rock you mentioned if that is what you are used to using and keep it warm. It might help to add a thin layer of sphagnum as a top dressings. That will help stabilize it, it will protect any new little root tips emerging and hold some extra moisture.