Repotting. Ugh.
 

Hello all,

I am taking some time to focus on repotting about a dozen orchids that need it. It is very onerous. Many of these plants are pot-bound and the two I just finished took hours.

Some of the orchids were easy to repot like my Brassavolas. This took maybe ten minutes for a few of them. The Brassavolas repottings did not prepare me for the horror show that was the soft cane Dendrobiums.

Two giant Yamamoto Dendrobiums I have took nearly four hours to repot as they were in degraded moss with roots wrapped around roots to make a solid mass of roots filling the pot. I had to carefully untie all the roots and carefully pick out bits of slimy old moss. At least the job is done and the remaining ones I don’t think will be as time consuming to repot.

Its a good feeling when a difficult repotting is done, you must feel great knowing you have done several.

I think the longest it took me was 2 hours with a deep lodged moss ball that had been surrounded by roots, also practice makes perfect. Some of my earlier repots when I went back a year later I would think - that was done terribly and glad I have improved since ;). Long handled tweezers and a dentists tooth pick (not sure that is the right word for the tool, a piece of wire bent into a hook shape would work too) will help tremendously picking out moss.
I also have one of those cave exploring headlamps that I use repotting cause it's very hard shining a torch into hard to see spots while holding the plant in one hand and tweezers in the other.


But this is also one of the reasons I no longer use Moss or bark or anything else that rots in the long term. It might create amazing results in the first few months but then having to deal with it a year later is just not worth my time, I deal with new candidates from the shop and I make sure my future repots after that take no more than 5 minutes.

Older roots on Dendrobiums don't do much after the new growth begins. I don't bother removing more than is very loose and easy to remove in a few minutes.

I absolutely abhor potting up new orchids. Picking the bark off old roots will never be a favorite pastime. Fortunately, except for the Phal bellina (in NZ sphagnum moss) and the Phaius orchids, once I have them in the lava rock and basket pots, I just need to drop them in larger basket pots and add more lava rock when they need a larger pot...nice and easy.

Just finished up another set. This time, I did some Cattleyas (which is the majority of the job). They aren’t as annoying as the Dendrobiums but the roots are so easy to break, even after I soak them.

One of the local(ish) growers I buy from also uses a material I hate: Coconut coir. All it does in my opinion is make the mix rot/mold sooner. I prefer bark mixed with lava rock, leca, perlite, and charcoal.

I had to stop as I ran out of 5.5 inch pots and I already upgraded the ones I needed to the 6.5 and 8 inch pots.

hey brassa, your mix sounds very good.
I was just reading this article about cymbidiums but the info I think is relevant for most orchids in general.
It explained charcoal in great detail which I need to add to mine in future.
The 8 Best Potting Media for Cymbidium Orchids - Orchideria

The article is nearly complete but reading through it it feels like towards the end the info starts to trail off, giving all the pros and cons of barks, mosses but then falls short on the hydroponic media lumping pumice and lava rock and even clay pebbles as one and the same media and that is like lumping redwood bark and charcoal as the same media which is very innaccurate so apart from the serious lack of detail on the alternative substrates to use towards the end the beginning is very useful I found.

I have also come to find that pumice can come in all sorts of different grades, some only holding 10% of water, others holding 30% water, sizes make a big difference in how fast the pumice will dry so there is no perfect mix but knowing the different properties helps pick what works best.

I use #4 perlite and lump charcoal broken to size along with lava rock and LECA (if some is around) that is the base mix. For plants that want a little more water I’ll add 1:10 big bark pieces

I keep a tote (15 ga) of the base mix in hand pretty much all the time and it makes potting and repotting a lot easier.

For what it is worth. Nothing is easier that SH for potting and repotting.