Today I decided to finally do something about my very, very potbound Phal lueddemanniana before the new spike that started gets long enough for me to accidentally snap off (I have a talent for doing that!). I keep it in a heavy decorative pot because it's a very top heavy plant (2 long spikes with keikis on them), and didn't really notice how stuffed with roots the pot has become.
So I somehow managed to release it from its very cramped home, untangled the solid mass of roots and discovered that there was hardly any media in the pot! I was regularly brushing excess media off the surface of the pot, and now I know that it was because the monster root system were ejecting the bark chunks to make room for itself...
And amazingly, there was not a single dead or dying root. Every single one is in perfect health. It was in a 9cm pot, won't fit in a 10 or 11cm, so it's going to go to the next size I have; a 14cm pot. Or I'll stuff it in a standard sized 11cm pot and add very little media since it seems to enjoy growing that way.
This is the plant after I untangled all the roots, next to the pot that I took it out of. How the h*ll did it all fit in there???
Roots, roots, and more roots!
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