the 'rescues' repotting

[phalnoob]

Hello all. So my recent rescued phals have been settling in well, the bigger one had very droopy leaves that were very wrinkled but now seem to be gettin stronger after a good feed and water but i never repotted as the roots look healthy and the media doesnt seem bad.
The little one has pefect leaves but when i checked alot of roots were rotted and squishy so i snipped them and repotted with new media (i used seramis mix) and watered it......it seems ok as i say leaves are perfect woth no marks on them. Is that the best thing iv done for them?
Also i got a nice oncidium which has 4 'bulbs' and loads of flowers byt the pot is fairly small, should i leave this until its not blooming? And is seramis mix ok for that too?

[mtorchid]

What do you mean by "mix" in "seramis mix"? And, if it's a fine grind like Turface, I wouldn't use it on larger root orchids like Phals. Finer roots like Oncs may like it, but again, it would depend upon what is in the mix.

Are you familiar with LECA clay pellets? That's what I would suggest for your Phals. Larger size pellets give more air pockets around the roots.

[phalnoob]

Its called seramis orchid potting mox, it has bark and clay etc in it. It was recomended at the shop and when i looked at the others it was very compost like which i didnt think was good

[wintergirl]

I found Seramis on Amazon. It looks ok for your phal. I would wait to repot your oncidium until after blooming. You might be able to use the same mix with your oncidium but mix in little pieces of sphag moss. I only have one oncidium so someone may want to answer more about that one.


Seramis 1174458 Special Granulated Orchid Mix 7 L: Amazon.co.uk: Garden & Outdoors

[mtorchid]

There are many uses for calcined clay. Seems to be popular in Bonzai applications. I would be suspicious about a "one size fits all" orchid mix. Repotme has Turface and you can make your own mix on their site:

https://www.repotme.com/orchid-potti...a/Turface.html

[Ray]

Be careful of turface, as it's not as highly fired as LECA, so can still crumble over time, becoming more suffocating.

[Brooke]

Ray I used turface for all of my bonsai and the tropicals were watered daily when outside, every other day during the winter inside.

My trees were sunk into the ground for the winter and took whatever Mother Nature sent my way. I never noticed any degrading. If the turface crumbled over time, it would have been dust.

Brooke

[phalnoob]

The problem iv found is the shops around me have little choice and their own brands have been like soil with added bark so very unsuitable from what ive read. Iv not even found bags of bark which is why the seramis was the one i chose. Could order online of course but wanted the worst repotted straight away.