Cattleya roots completely embedded in decayed potting media, please help!

[oscar freak]

Originally Posted by bil

I think it's more that if enough air cannot get to the roots, then they die, whether they get water or not. The reason people tallk about the media drying out is that it should then allow air in. Watering is like the soil in the pot breathing out as the water fills all the air spaces, and as the water is used up or evaporates, the air is drawn into the soil, like someone breathing in.

Keeping the medium permanetly wet stops air exchange.

and thats why i'm switching to terracota pots with extra drainage holes and ditching water retentive mediums.i love watering too much

[bil]

Originally Posted by oscar freak

and thats why i'm switching to terracota pots with extra drainage holes and ditching water retentive mediums.i love watering too much

Well, this is my Cattleya experiment.

They are in shallow trays with a very thin medium layer. Hopefuly this will allow for years of undisturbed growth, while being impossible to overwater.

[oscar freak]

thats another way to go i suppose.mine are in my lounge so i'm restricted to pots.how is watering gonna work for you?

[bil]

Originally Posted by oscar freak

thats another way to go i suppose.mine are in my lounge so i'm restricted to pots.how is watering gonna work for you?

The floor of the greenhouse is painted, I spray water them until water just drips out. They get sprayed in the morning, and if it's a hot day, I give them a spray in the afternoon.

[oscar freak]

I potted one of my catts into a basket with coarse bark and stones after your idea.now to water daily or every second day according to some guys at an orchid show i went to yesterday.

[kdennis14]

Hi,
I use lava rock on several of my larger catts. They love it. No rot! You must water more often though. I am experimenting with wine corks as well. No rot. I think I prefer the rock better. I have 2 of my catts blooming, guess what?? They are in lava rock.
Best of Luck to you,
Karen

[Orchid Whisperer]

You may already have repotting handled, but when I have a plant with good roots but decaying medium, sometimes I jus take it outside to a garden hose and use a moderately hard spray (not too hard) to dislodge as much decayed medium as possible. This is effective and does not damage the roots. Then you can fi ish repotting as usual.

[Wathepleela]

First, a happy report on the cattleya in question:

The big boy is still growing strong, real easy to care for like a carefree puppy. For all the repotting crisis that opened this thread, I have finally simply layered the bottom of the pot with lava rocks leaving plenty of airspace for the plant’s “breathing exercise,” keeping the same old medium. I dunk the pot in water once every four or five days, when the medium gets powdery dry. However the weather is getting hotter than usual this time of the year (after one year and a half living in Bangkok, I still have a rather hazy idea about native seasons, and still go out wearing an extra outer shirt anytime of day, just as I would back home in Southern California) and the leaves tended to burn when I didn’t pay attention, as a result I have lost a number of, for lack of a better word, canes.

Or it could be just that it’s the cycle of shedding old leaves? Some didn’t burn starting at the leaf tip, the bulb simply blackened and shriveled and the leaf yellowed out and died . However, the little baby growth that was seen at the earlier pic is now a growing cane with sheath! Another baby growth is showing its leaf and two more eyes are budging out at the base of the old big cane (the one that had the pregnant sheath in the earlier pics).

Now regarding why this “epilogue:” I think I have come out of my orchid fever phase….and it’s a good thing. At the height of the fever, I was driven, obsessed all the while fumbling in the dark and had to check in with this board almost every few hours of the day (and go to the nurseries every few days of the week.) Now I have given away half of my collection, and kept the ones that I can live with (and vice versa). The collection/menagerie has dwindled down to two baskets/bushels of rhys, one vanda, the cattleya and a cluster of dens (which I suspected aussie microchips from the pic shown to me by its previous owner) that got dumped on my lap from a friend as she was moving out of town. The change gives me some breathing space, both physically and mentally.

I think the wisdom crystallined one day when a saying that I had picked up somewhere on this board from a member finally sank in: her grower repeatedly chided her for getting plants that were “beyond my growing abilities.” I realized what I had done was dictated to a lifelong habbit, that of acquiring – hoarding rather – stuff that I think I will need/want/use in a brighter future (that might or might not come.) The future pertinent to this context is to move to a house with a terrace overlooking a river bank, a canal or best of all, the seashore… (dream on!) This might take a long time even though housing here is real cheap (and life is getting very short!)

The long and short of this is fond as I am of the cattleya, I think sometime in the near future, I will give it away. (Attached is a pic of the catt with its original bloom, which has a rootbeer-ish flavor, it’s been a while now.)