How many Catts. in a pot?

[Mere313]

Over the weekend my aunt gave me 4 bare root Cattleya plants. Each plant has 3-4 pseudobulbs. I think they are all the same kind of Cattleya, but I'm not positive (there were no tags). My question is can I pot all 4 Cattleyas in the same pot? 2 plants in the same pot? Or am I better off keeping each on in it's own pot? Also, how coarse should the potting media be? Thanks!

[Leafmite]

I would pot them in separate pots. Your Cattleyas, depending on what ancestry they have, may have different requirements concerning watering.
As for medium, it really depends on the conditions you are able to offer. For my conditions (cooler home during the winter, outside during the summer), I prefer red lava rock. It is really difficult to kill them in that.
With Cattleyas, I have found that a little extra calcium will help ward off fungus and bacterial problems.
Good luck!

[Optimist]

Separate pots. They may be "the same" or different. Full sized (regular) cattleyas when full grown can get to 24 inches tall. They can be huge plants. However, if they are "compact" they might be about 12 inches tall.

Four gigantic plants in one pot would be a nightmare to separate later if they are standard sized.

This is a real spacy answer, so sorry. I am a little under the weather right now.

[bil]

Yeah, I would stick to one in a pot for a lot of reasons. Also I would pot in plain bark, large (2" chunks) I get fabulous root growth in that. Plus, you can water as often as you like. As long as the bark hasn't degraded, you simply can't overwater.