What to cut on older very large Cattaleya

[bambruso]

I understand cattleya's bloom from new growth. This is a very large and old plant that I have divided into 4 plants and they are still rather large. Do I go in there and cut the older dried pseudobulbs or just leave as it is.

[Louis_W]

Holy smokes!

What's the goal? Have smaller more vigerous plant? Do you want to get rid of the rest?

I would find a nice section of the plant that has the most leads and cut out a section that has 10 or 15 bulbs and keep that.

Looks like you could do 50 divisions if you wanted too! As long as each division has 3-4 bulbs (even if they are old bulbs). Pot them up and care for them until they grow new leads, then sell them or give them away!

Do you know what it is? There's gotta be a tag in there somewhere!

[Keysguy]

Louis is correct. Depends what your objective is. I butcher, ahem, I mean "divide" some of my monster specimen Catts every year to make divisions to sell on the co-op table at our show. It makes more room on my benches so gives me the space and the free cash flow to buy different ones although I always keep a big division for myself.

When you get in there you can cut out any old, dead pseudobulbs or ones that have lost the leaf. Technically you should be able to get the latter to sprout new growths if you know what you're doing but when you have that much to work with, it's really not worth the effort in my opinion.

Also, you really should only do this during periods of new growth. I'm in the subtropics so mine are always in grow mode but if you live further north you probably should wait until you see new growth starting in the spring.

[Fairorchids]

With a starting point that large, I would:

Make a 15-20 PB main division as my keeper.
Make multiple 6-10 PB divisions to sell/trade/use as gifts.

[Louis_W]

Alternatively, if you want to just clean up your giant plants you could go through and cut out old spikes and old bulbs to make a little room and hopefully invigorate the plants.

[estación seca]

Do you need to borrow a pickup truck?

[DirtyCoconuts]

holy hand grenade!!! seeing an orchid that large delights me



great advice already on here - i would also take some and mount it to a tree. that plant is loving your environment and it might just take over a tree