Your help with Onc. Sharry Baby repotting
 

I got Onc Sharry Baby from Hauserman's last fall. It's in a 4" plastic pot, over flowing with air roots. Overflowing! I have had her in a large glass box all this time do I can keep the air roots moist. Anyway, she is losing her second set of blooms and it's time to repot.

My question: what to do with the air roots? Inside or outside the new pot?

Aereal roots typically don't like to be in media. I'd leave them out.

Yeah, thats what I thought. Just needed confirmation.😄

I make a distinction between the ones that are pointing at the sky and the ones that are hugging the pot. The skyward ones stay aerial, but the ones that are surrounding the pot end up in the new container. It seems to work for me.

Most are down around the pot...Hmmm, conflicting advice...

The old roots don't do much anyway. The new roots from new growths do most of the work, and they will grow where they want to grow.

How long are the aereal roots?

I wonder if you can guess what I will say? :rofl:

I think that 4" is too deep, and not nearly wide enough. In your shoes I would repot in shallow fine bark with maybe a ball or two of sphag to keep it damp, altho the best solution is, I think, to mount.

John has been encouraging me to mount, I have several mounted now and several Tolumnias hanging. While I knew you would say that, I think that would ( pardon my opinion) look silly for this plant.

How many roots and how long? A ridiculous amount and if straightened out, some might be a foot. If it had been only a few, I would never have asked. But it is pushing new growth and the flowers are (finally) dropping. It has been in flower for at least 6 months. So, I asked the experts...

I think that if you did mount it, the aerial roots would stop being produced and gradually die off, equally if not, once it is established you can always cut off the troublesome ones.

Interestingly, I am finding that the drier and more open the media is with epiphytes, the heavier the root growth becomes.. It's as if the more they have to work for their water, the better they grow.

Can you post a pic please?

I would look at a branch mount if it is an odd shape. I find that if you have a variety of branch shapes to look at, sooner of later one will fit.

I should have done that last night. Will do it in a bit...

bil, here you go. I am probably not going to mount but, I would consider a basket, although, how could it be kept moist enough?

Personally, I would leave those long, long aereal roots out of a new pot. Putting them into any media is quite likely to kill them anyway.

Now, while I can see that it's a large plant, so one that might take a little extra care when mounting, I see it as a good candidate. Those roots would be great for wrapping about a mount to help secure the plant. And I've not had trouble with aereal roots on mounted plants. So long as they have some humidity they love to grow.

😞

It's Sharry Baby. It's supposed to be one of the easiest orchids to grow. Just cram it in a pot and stop worrying.

I wouldn't mount an Oncidium hybrid unless you're 100% sure you will have time to water it every day for the rest of your life. They're water hogs. You have central heating, and humidity is low in the winter, so you might have to water a mounted plant twice a day in the winter.

And if you look through old threads, people complain it gets enormous really fast. Would you be able to move a colossal haystack of mounted Sharry Baby?

Well, those were exactly my thoughts. Cram it is. The original question was to cram or not to cram.

Oy. Cram it, Carol.

Sounds like a song title....

TBH, I think that you are worrying unnecessarily. It really isn't that big IMO. I had a zygopetallum that was bigger, and it never occurred to me not to mount it. You just need a big enough branch with a suitable fork. Wrap all those roots around, cover them with moss, and wind on some line to hold it in place. I would use a decent amount of moss, as much as will keep it happy on one watering a day in summer.

One alternative would to be to mount it on a bit of ply like I did with that den phal. I'll shove the pic on here. Using that technique you can add a bit more moss till you find the right wetness level.

If you would rather pot, I would get an azalea bowl or something of that ilk, - that would be a tad deep for fine bark, so I would put a layer of coarse bark in (remember to sieve it). Then I would stand the plant on that bark, spread the roots out in a flat layer, cover it with sphag balls about 2 " in diameter, but well spaced so that there is about two inches between each ball. Then I would fill the spaces with fine bark so the fine bark was just two inches deep. I deally that would fill the pot as deep as necessary, so you basically want to put the coarse bark in first to a point two inches below your desired top of the media.

Three rocks around it to hold it steady ill the roots grow, and that should do it for a couple of years at least.

I think a basket is doable, I'd use coarse bark in as a layer, put a thin layer of moss on that, sit the plant on that, put another thin layer of moss on that, and fill to the top with coarse bark.

Hope that helps.

stupid duplicate post...

bil, I saw an azalea pot at Lowe's last night. I am going to mostly use your method. Thanks. I flirted with the idea of mounting and putting it in a plank. But, ES is right about the watering....

Glad to be of help. Part of the problem with epiphytic orchids is that they seem to like the wetting then fast drying cycle that a mount provides. So, if you want to provide that, then in summer, daily watering is a must. Mind you, it doesn't take that long. I currently take 45 minutes to spray all my mounts, which averages out at about 25 seconds a mount, which isn't a whole lot of time spent.

Yes, but the I do not have the set up to spray as you do
Nor the flood insurance for my house.😁

That's just an engineering problem. The 5 litre spray is easy to purchase. If I had to have a mount indoors, I would make a lightweight cylinder out of thin plastic, with a funnel at the bottom to catch the water. It would have an open top, and a hole in the side.

You would hold the spray booth in the left hand, and lift it up under the orchid until the plant is inside. Spray with the right hand, and when it has had enough, just wait for a minute to allow for drips.

If you had a lot of mounts inside, every few mounts you tip the contents of the spray booth into a bucket.

Thinking about it, you could get a water bottle for 5 litres or bigger, of drinking water. Make the hole in the bottom not by cutting the bottom off, but by cutting a circular hole in the bottom, so you retain the bottom edge for strength.

Then cut a hole in the side - not too big, just big enough for the spray head plus a bit of movement and there you are. Your very own orchid spray booth!

bil, are you as handsome as McGyver too? 😀😁😃😄

Not sure who he is, but thank you for the compliment. :blushing:

I'm older and uglier for certain.

My father died when I was quite young, 8 or 9, and almost all of the men in my family that were left, grandfather uncles, died in the same year.

So, I grew up with no one telling me what was possible and what wasn't. So, I would make mistakes and find out the hard way what definitely was beyond me, but you would be surprised how many things that people say you can't do, are actually quite easy, especially if no one tells you it's impossible.

I once read where someone said "There is an engineering solution to everything.." and it's true. Of course sometimes the price is too high, but it's usually there if you look.

I've posted a pic of my mounted zygo to this with my hand for scale, so you can see what something that size looks mounted.

Very nice, bil. I'll post a picture when I finish.

Thank you. I'd like to see that.

MacGyver (TV Series 1985–1992) - IMDb

Hope this works.

I'm definitely not a butch heartthrob like that. Back in the day, when I was a LOT younger, I used to look a bit like Illya Kuriakin from the Man from Uncle.

Now, I'm old, my hips are screwed and my back hurts. Like so many old people I look in the mirror, and inside the young me just wonders what the heck happened.

Update
 

I used an 8" clay azalea pot. Coarse fir bark mixed with chopped spag and stepped up the watering. ES is right, she is huge and happy. New roots, growth etc. If the aerial roots died by being buried, she doesn't seem to have minded. I'm too lazy to take a picture.😁 Thanks for all the help and debate.

So this thread is just cracking me up.

Everyone is good for something , even comic relief. 😎