Wooden baskets engulfed by large cattleyas - is Repotting even possible?

[piping plover]

Roots appearing. Another one I just liberated from a wooden basket to a clay pot. This was actually in a small clay pot within a wooden basket. LC. Ida Elizabeth Tyler. Has never bloomed for me but making progress. The bloom photo is from the website of Ironwood Estate orchids ( a wonderful family owned greenhouse in NC I Actually visited)

[Roberta]

Well done!

[piping plover]

Originally Posted by Roberta

Well done!

Thank you. Roberta, I like being aware now of the new roots prompting to repot. Probably something I should have learned decades ago but with such a short growing season here I always tackled all the repots in May - July. Feeling like I have more of a pulse on each orchid by the weekly monitoring for new roots and it’s more exciting to be working with the individual orchid’s natural cycle rather than hoping my potting schedule luckily synchs with the orchid.

[piping plover]

Here’s the Brassia Edvah Loo ‘Nishida’. It is large but not as hard to remove from basket as the others.

I learned after a few of the basket breakdowns, that a pair of loppers is much easier and less brutal than using a handsaw. With loppers I cut the slats one one side down the middle and then across the bottom. I was then able to pull open the slats like a double door and it all pivoted and unfolded on the metal bar hinges away from the root mass. This orchid also was planted within a small clay pot within the basket.

I transferred to a clay pot.

[piping plover]

Transferred another big one to clay today. Looking at them all I am over the hump on this task now, have only 5 more to go. Many of the clay pots I set in the wooden baskets only for hanging purposes as a do like the weathered wood look.

[piping plover]

This one has roots elevating the growths 4” above the surface. I will try to get the roots as intact as possible but if I were to cut them straight across the surface level do they typically branch or start new tips at the cut? The root tips are all starting now so here’s my opportunity to repot to clay. Photos of the roots today and the blooms last summer .

Thanks

[Roberta]

Damaged/cut roots might branch and they might not. They certainly won't do new tips at the cut. So preserve as many as you can. Pretty much, it'll be the new roots from the new growth that will have long term survival, and new branches of old roots if you get any. I find that dealing with overgrown plants like this is often a two stage process... I get the plant repotted, keeping older but firm pseudobulbs and associated roots to give the plant energy to make the new growths and new roots, then in a couple of years when it is starting to climb out of the pot again, I can whack the older pseudobulbs and their by-that-time reather dead roots, to get the plant down to the desired size of all good growths and roots. Remembering that whenever you change the medium, roots adapted to the old medium will die off. Staying within the same medium type (bark to bark rather than bark to LECA for instance) will minimize the loss of old roots.

[piping plover]

Thanks so much Roberta for your steadfast advice! You are a reliable lifeline in the middle of my crossroads with these repotting dilemmas I find myself in

Originally Posted by Roberta

Damaged/cut roots might branch and they might not. They certainly won't do new tips at the cut. So preserve as many as you can. Pretty much, it'll be the new roots from the new growth that will have long term survival, and new branches of old roots if you get any. I find that dealing with overgrown plants like this is often a two stage process... I get the plant repotted, keeping older but firm pseudobulbs and associated roots to give the plant energy to make the new growths and new roots, then in a couple of years when it is starting to climb out of the pot again, I can whack the older pseudobulbs and their by-that-time reather dead roots, to get the plant down to the desired size of all good growths and roots. Remembering that whenever you change the medium, roots adapted to the old medium will die off. Staying within the same medium type (bark to bark rather than bark to LECA for instance) will minimize the loss of old roots.