pot size and medium

[kvet]

The "core" of each has been in the same unknown medium for three years, and both the zygo and dendrobium are outgrowing their original pots. It's my understanding plants in organic media really ought to be refreshed annually, but can sometimes be pushed to 2 or 3 years. I am being proactive at this point to head off issues associated with medium breakdown, such as acidity or rot, these three plants are sentimental to me I would really prefer not to do anything to disturb them.

Writing this makes me want to rethink putting them in bark, and rather go inorganic. Hmmmm. I don't like this

[kvet]

Originally Posted by Roberta

You can use that coconut coir instead of sphagnum as an additive. Do soak it well and check... salt content is very dependent on its source.. if ever exposed to salt water, pretty impossible to get it all out.

Here’s a TMI analysis of my coconut coir and water

24 hour soak in distilled water shows a TDS of 203, pH 7.2 pH, and 0 hardness. I do not recall if the coir was given a bucket of tap water to "open up" from the brick. A rinse with tap water, hand squeeze, and a second soak in distilled water shows a TDS to 43. I'm running low on distilled water, crud.

Tap water currently has a TDS of 425, pH 7.8, and 5 grains per gallon hardness (90 CaCO3 mg/L). I have a Mavea brand filter for drinking, it's way overdue for replacement now, currently it lowers the pH to ~6.5 and hardess to <1 grain, ppm to 400 – this has barely changed from when I first installed it a couple years ago. In my old condo, I'd corrected pH by routing the filtered water through a carbon-calcite filter, but I didn't bother doing the plumbing for that here.

This is the brand coir, and I've already used up a bunch in the mix for my strawberries and blueberries which look super healthy and strong right now. The packaging said it's been washed already, and at the time I made the decision to use it right out of the bag. This might explain why some of my new vegetable seedlings are stunted. Hmmm.

I have discovered a local mulching company also sells coir, it'd probably need rinsing, will investigate further to see what kind it is and pricing. Just curious

[Roberta]

If you're just mixing the coir in with bark, should be OK. You don't have any super-sensitive plants.

[kvet]

Having loads of confidence based on a productive weekend of gardening**, I just performed a zygopetalumæctomy. Tricky but I think I got it without disturbing much of anything. Not pictured was the root mass with as much of the old medium removed as possible. It is now soaking in a tepid water bath, so I can clean off the roots a little better and tell which ones are dead vs. alive.. lots of "papery" ones on the bottom, mostly dead.

Following this, should I soak in kelpmax, spray the roots with physan 20, then insert into new pot?

I may come back with pictures, but I think which roots to snip will be fairly self explanatory.. almost everything inside the plastic pot had no substance... eeep??

Also, it felt like I could easily separate the older bulbs from the newer ones. Hmmm.

edit: I forgot to ask, what do I do with the old, browned leaves? They don't easily peel. Just leave them? Or try snipping them?

This is exciting and terrifying!

**hey, it's my first time not only playing in/with dirt, but also having a modicum of success!

[Roberta]

Don't divide the plant... the new growths will feed off the old ones (eventually shriveling the older pseudobulbs) You can remove the old, already shrunk ones if any, but if they are firm, the plant needs them. If the old leaves really bother you, trimming is OK, but when the plant is really done with them, they'll be shed anyway. I'm inclined to think that Mother Nature knows more than we do, and we should let her do her thing where possible.

[kvet]

Understood.

As I trimmed the dead roots and things cleared up it was clear there are 2 plants.. they were NOT connected, some of the roots were intertwined!

So one side has healthy air and ground roots, the other has one ground and a few air roots. The air roots remain outside the media, correct?

Going in for the kelpmax dip now.

Should I let things dry after the dip, before putting into media, or, okay to put away for the night?

[Roberta]

I think all the roots can go into the medium, unless they are positioned where it's not practical. And no reason that I can think of, to hold back on potting... After its dip, pot it up. Those new roots look great.

[kvet]

All done! Now at window with moderate soft light for a week, then I'll move back to the east window. I couldn't get the larger one to fit into the 4.5" terra cotta, so it went into the only other one, a 6".. I know it looks a little too big. And... I think it may have a spike that I totally missed. Oi.

There was a momentary temptation to do semi hydro with one of these. Maybe next year.

The dendrobium and phal are next, later this week!

Thanks again to all for help and support

[Roberta]

They look happy! Don't worry about the size of the larger pot - bark is large so it will drain and dry out well.

[kvet]

The SVO plant came out easily from its 3" container, woah look at all the roots! The lazy person in me wants to simply place this gently into a larger pot and surround with same media, instead of cleaning out the roots and disturbing them. Hmmmm.