New to orchids and need help with repotting

[bbalkom]

Hi,

I love Orchids and decided to dive in. I rescued 2 from the 1/2 off shelf at the store. One is a dendrobium, the tag says D. Bandera dela Suerte "Ki'ilani" (it's bulbous with white and purple flowers). The pot is tiny and has 1 root creaping over the edge. Do I repot with flowering even though the root is creaping over? The other had no flowers and is labeled Eplc. Volcano Trick "Fireball" The stalks don't look as bulbous and there are 6 in what looks like the original plastic pot. A couple of the leaf tips looks damaged but not badly. Not sure what the root sys. looks like. Do I repot and separate all of the stalks? [IMG][/IMG]
http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s...ckFireball.jpg

[dounoharm]

you dont want to separate anything on these two plants....but repotting might be ok. they really look fine to me, repotting might disclose some damage to the roots which can be repaired by cutting the damaged portion and repotting into a similar sized pot. puff a little cinnamon on the cuts for fungicide....

[philoserenus]

congrats! u have officially caught the orchid addiction, LoL!! the plant looks lovely. a few things to consider with dendrobiums and eplc. no matter now big the pots get, the roots will always grow out of the pot (which is actually very okay); they just grow many many many many roots.

when it comes to repotting:
you can use that same container at least for another year--orchids like to rootbound. just unpot and trim off any mushy dead roots. after that, place back into the container with new media (large bark/charcoal). then place the container into a nice looking pot for display--also helps the plant from tipping the itself over.

then say next year, u might want to graduate up a size for container b/c it will probably be too small for it then when it has like 4-5 pseudobulbs

goodluck ^^

[10010100102]

Like dounoharm said, don't split the plant. Bigger plants produce more and better flowers, and that's what we're in it for!

If you ask me, it isn't necessary to repot either plant right now. Nevertheless, personally I'd repot the Eplc. (which stands for Epilaeliocattleya, by the way; had to look that up) just to take a look at its root system and see how it's doing. With the Dendrobium, I'd wait until it's done blooming (if you repot while blooming, you risk loosing the spike) and then repot. The root crawling over the edge is nothing to worry about; a very seasoned orchid grower once said to me "Any self-respecting orchid will escape its pot."

[10010100102]

Here's a good tutorial from YouTube on repotting an orchid.

Orchid Repotting

It does a pretty good job at demonstrating the basic process, I think. Maybe you know all this stuff already, but if you don't check it out.

Hope I've been able to help, and with your orchids!

[bbalkom]

Thanks! Looks like I've got some good info to go on. I appreciate all the help!