Potbound, what to do when repotting?
 

I've got this GrammCym Mem. Nathan Newman 'NN' that I'm going to repot. The newest growth is hanging over the edge of the pot. The existing pot seemed lumpy. I started to peel the pot away and found that this guy is FULL of roots.

How far should I go to try to get the old media out?

How much damage should I do to the existing roots to get the old media out?

I've got a pot that's about 1.5" larger (6") and clear that I'm planning to put this guy in.

It's good to know that he's healthy!

And I'm not sure why, but I looked at the bottom of the pot earlier this week and was amused by what I found

If you stick the whole root ball in a container of water for half an hour, the roots will be more pliable. Then you may be able to tease out some of the broken down medium that is in the center of the root mass. If it is growing cute little mushrooms out the bottom, it is pretty moist in there. Pulling out the old stuff and replacing it with fresh chunks of bark would be my goal.

No need to completely loosen the root ball. Just make sure all those roots are actually still alive.

Excellent! Thanks, yeah, I'd read that many times, but more in reference to getting media off of the roots, but makes sense for the roots too.

With overgrown Cyms (and this plant has monster root-growers on both sides of the family) after I unpot the beast and tease loose as much of the old media as I can (just poke around roots with fingers... can't possibly get them untangled without breaking good roots so I don't) I put the hose nozzle on "stream" and aim blasts of water at the media that I can see around the roots. The broken-down stuff washes out pretty well, I don't worry about what doesn't wash out because it is not broken down. This should also dislodge the mushrooms and any creepy crawlers (which may have also taken up residence in the broken-down media, accelerating the process).

If the beast has gotten to the point where you can't get it into a reasonable-size pot, then it's time to divide. If you have to slice, you may lose a blooming season but sometimes something has to give. How big you let it go depends on how much you can lift...

This thing is on the extreme side. On the bottom, I can't see media. And you guys can see that on most of the sides, you can't see media. I'm using heavy tweezers to pry out what I can doing the least amount of damage, but I don't think anything is going to wash out. The media isn't good, but it's not horrible either. Some of it (I assume because it is packed so tightly with roots) actually seems pretty new which isn't possible, I don't think.

I don't think it's there yet. It's got 6 or 7 Pbulbs, but the smallest one is about the size of a quarter or 50cent piece. The two most mature bulbes are big and fat and the new growth is planning to be big like his parents.

One of the older Pbulbs is rotting, but I've read that these may do that in order to build now growth, and it's apparently, fairly common. It's very small and one of the oldest Pbulbs anyway. The rest seem very healthy.

Thanks for the advice.

I do see some spots in the photos where a water blast and flush would do some good. Worth a try... the loose, rotted stuff washes out, the rest you don't care about.

I'll definitely give that a shot. I feel like I'm playing the old game "Operation"

It was in a 4.5" pot. Now that I've loosened some of the outer roots, I'm going to have a heck of a time getting this into the 6" pot WITH media, plus getting media into the area where I've pulled it out of the rootball.

Is it bad that it stands flat on a counter and is completely stable with no pot and nothing but roots? :D

These are the after photos of the rootball.

Not bad, this plant has excellent roots. Knowing where this hybrid is going to go, I would not bother with the 6" pot - go to 8" (2 gal) as you would with a standard Cym. Don't worry about getting new media into the middle - if you will have some air in the middle of the pot, and that's great. If you put in in that 8" pot, there will be plenty of media to grow into, but not too much - and the airspace in the middle will be beneficial. If it was in a 4.5"pot, it started out as a baby. You have a young adolescent now.

I looked up the parentage... the Cymbidium part is only 25% (a mid-size Cym) 75% of it is Gram scriptum. You sort of got a St. Bernard puppy...