Potting up/Re-Potting
 

When potting up a cattleya in inert material, have you ever just busted the clay pot it's in, then picked off what pieces of the pot that comes off easily, leaving the rest attached? Then insert the whole thing in a larger pot? Adding more inert potting material to fill in the spaces.

I read about this recently and it really got me to thinking not only about potting medium but how much easier the potting up process would be like this.

I love growing cattleya in a bark mixture. But the nice hard, large bark is scarce now a days.

The other day I knocked a 4 in clay pot off the shelf. Even though it landed on pea gravel, it busted pretty badly. :_(

The pot is full of roots that won't have to be disturbed too much because it's in lava rock. I can knock off the loose pieces of clay and put what's left in another pot.

Had it been in my favorite bark mixture and if that media was deteriorated, I would have had to do a lot more before repotting.

Anyway, just a thought and maybe another plus for the inert types of potting medium.

i,ve taken smaller overgrown pots and just plunked them into a larger one pot and all,filled around the edges of the new pot with fresh media and the orchid just kept on growing into the new media.
the only thing i would advise though is to make sure the old media is good and not broken down.at least that,s my canadian penny,s worth.

Debs,

I try to break up the old pot into small pieces and remove as much of it as possible (giving the root mass a good soak helps), but if you're going inert- to inert media, the pot is pretty much the same composition as the LECA, so it's really not an issue if you do leave pieces attached.

I like to get the old media and pot pieces off the roots completely even if it is necessary to cut off some of the roots. Then I sterilize the remaining roots with Physan.
The object is to get rid of as much of the bacteria that caused the decay of the poting media as possible. Why start the repoted plant with the same bacteria that caused breakdown?

At the SBOE they dont re-pot for the most part, they just stick it in a larger pot with no medium.

Ex #1: I got a Neofinetia Falcata from them and it was in a 5" pot that I saw. While repotting it into a basket, I noticed that at it's core it was in a 2" pot with very decomposed medium and a few roots which were adapted to this, this pot was placed in a 3.5" pot and lots and lots of white roots in that open space, this 3.5" which was inside the 5" pot where lots more white roots dwelled.

Ex #2: L. anceps I got from them was in a 2" pot in medium sized granite which was placed in a 3.5" pot and the same abundance of healthy white roots were more than happy in this open space.

I wish I had pics to show, but I everytime I get something from them I'm too excited to repot them to my desired containers :blushing:

Debs,
I think your plan sounds fine. Like Ray said, youre going from inert media to inert media, therefore you dont have to worry about your old lava rock medium breaking down on you in the future! It might look a bit strange though. lol

I'm thinking mostly of smaller plants and of course they would have to be in lava rock or some other inert media.

A 2 inch pot placed in a four inch pot and so on, shouldn't even show the smaller pot by the time the new lava rock is put in place. Especially if the old smaller pot is broken up.

This might take some of the stress of repotting or potting up, off the already established plant. If the orchid has grown over the rim and has roots on the outside of it's pot you wouldn't have to disturb them.

The whole thing hinges on the use of clay pot and inert potting medium.

I've seen it done wonderfully with no additional medium having the pot dropped in a larger plastic pot. No disturbing of the roots at all.