Laelia milleri / Your opinion about repotting

[rbarata]

What would you do in this case, as it reached the pot edge?







As a side note, got this one almost 4 years ago. It has been growing one new growth each year but this year it-s the 3rd growth.
It never bloomed, in spite of full sun in winter and bright light in summer.
I've been doing some experiments to understand what's missing. This winter I'll keep it outside so that it gets temps lower than 10ºC at night.

[Shadeflower]

I'm sure someone here would say it is being underwatered, possibly it is. The new growth is progressively getting smaller than the previous growths, now most of the time warmer temps is a simple fix for that but this is a very cool grower so maybe the opposite.
You say it gets lots of sun. The sun is very warming- great for most warm growers but a cool grower would much prefer an led light in a basement over the sun.

Just a thought.

You know what you need to do with the plant regarding repotting, remove the last 3 backbulbs that are brown an repot it with that end against the pot edge but how to get it to flower will be the real challenge.

[estación seca]

Yes, I would repot, now. With the durable potting medium I would not be aggressive about removing old medium.

Cool means at night. Days in the summer will be very hot, and days in winter will be quite hot. The plant grows (grew) nearly exposed in crevices in rock at the top of low mountains. I'm sure you've found these:

Orchid News # 15

Cattleya et genres allies - Page 2

Orchid News - Previous issues / Números anteriores

Cattleya milleri Blumensch. ex Pabst | Rare flowers, Amazing flowers, Cattleya

[rbarata]

Thanks for the replies

Originally Posted by Shadeflower

I'm sure someone here would say it is being underwatered, possibly it is. The new growth is progressively getting smaller than the previous growths...

I doubt it is underwatered...it's watered everyday at night.
But I know what you mean about growth sizes...apart from a new leaf that never developed, all the others are still growing as they are new growths. They are not so high as the older leaves, but the pbulbs are fatter and the leaves are bigger in area.

Originally Posted by Shadeflower

You say it gets lots of sun. The sun is very warming- great for most warm growers but a cool grower would much prefer an led light in a basement over the sun.

This one is not a cool grower...as ES said, it get hot during daytime and cool by night (cool is around 8ºC).

ES, thanks for the links, some of them are new to me.

[Shadeflower]

rbarata, you can believe what you want and Estacion when he says it can grow warm. ES lives in a very hot climate as we know so I'd love to see how he does it. I will however still stick by what I said, this orchid does not experience over 24 degrees C where it grows. It grows one kilometer above sea level where its cool and breezy. That to me is a cool grower. Other people resort to using fridges to grow cool growers in a hot climate.
Now I said that it might be suggested that it is underwatered, more as a funny pun as I was expecting it to be suggested. I didn't actually want to imply that is what I believed. What I should have said is that I believe is that it was most likely being watered enough but it was drying out more than it could handle, probably by being exposed to temperatures above 24 degrees C. Even in the UK it is hard enough to not exceed those temperatures. It's going above 29 degrees for the next 2 weeks here and I know Spain and Portugal have a far hotter climate than the UK but just pointing that out for other growers who might have been growing a plant for 5 years without getting it to flower as Estacion believes it can handle the heat, I shouldn't even bother to suggest otherwise but I still will

I will add as a ps, I have flowered a milleri hybrid. I know not the same... but I definitely keep mine cool. They need a lot of light but can't handle the heat the sun provides unless they are growing a kilometer above sea level