Potting for specimen size Brassavola Nodosa 'little stars'
 

I am in the process of receiving my Grandfather's orchid collection. Yesterday I received a few vandas and this rather impressively sized brassavola nodosa little stars. I bought this for him as a gift 10-15 years ago, it's been kept outside so it's leaves have got some damage from the years and a little neglect in the past time.

I wouldn't mind to pot it once it's done blooming. I want to all the plants I'm inheriting to grow as specimens in his honour to take to judging and be awarded. How would you pot this, planning on the next 30 years?

I left the box cutter in the picture to try to show some scale of size. Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet

Consider growing it as a large mass of plant hanging on a chain, with no pot and no medium. It should do fine like that in your high-humidity climate. You will be limited only by how much weight you and friends can lift.

I saw a B. nodosa at a nursery in NH that was basically a 3' diameter sphere. It started out, so I'm told, on a cedar shake which was hung on a standard chain link fence. When I saw it, a small section of the fence had been removed and moved inside a greenhouse. Sadly I no longer have the pic

I'm going to grow it as a mass on a chain! That sounds incredible! It's already about a foot in diameter. It's about to bloom, so once it's finished I'll focus on carefully removing it from the pot after a long soak. I'll get some aluminium chain, wrap it around the orchid, and hang it! I can keep it very well watered and put it on the same water system as my vandas (once I make it)

great idea hang it with a chain. The orchids that get this size can take care of themselves for the most part as the root ball is compact and can hold moisture in. That plant needs some serious watering right now. Many of the reeds are done. I clip mine off at the base when they dry up and 90% of the time new shoots appear. Its not out of hand yet but close to strangling itself with dead material. Mine just lays in a pot with bark on the bottom does fine. The new shoots should stand straight up and feel rigid to the touch. Its happy when filled with water.

:twocents::waving

Some of the previous growths have been constrained underneath other growth. I took a hearty look at the basket today, and it was rotting away in my hands. The plant is shooting out 3 bloom spikes to start, so I didn't wanna repot it, but I ended up tearing up so much of the rotting basket to find the plant is still in it's original 3 inch plastic pot! Tomorrow I'm going to remove the old pots and the potting medium.

Maybe I can keep it in a large tub, filled with water (for extra humidity), but keep the plant out of water and just water it 1-2 times daily. From what I've seen of the roots the best looking ones are growing on the outside of the basket (which I will probably have to cut) I was able to save most of the roots of a vanda orchid in the same situation, but its roots seemed more stable.

Cattleya alliance roots don't last for more than a few years. The newest roots are doing almost all the work. Don't cut the newest roots! Figure out any other solution to that problem.