| Sharyn
The sheat with the buds will not develop since you say the buds turned black. They died from the cold. They will fall off naturally or you can remove them.
I grow thousands of Cattleya. There are generalizations and their are exceptions.
Re-potting -- this is an area of a lot of generalizations that do not always need to be followed. Specifically waiting to see new root growth before re-potting. If you wait your chances of having problems are reduced.
In October I received 100 XL Cattleya from Hawaii. Some of these had 8 inch root spans in a 4 inch pot. The roots were everywhere outside the pots. Most of the roots in the pots were rotted. This is normal when they get this big without re-potting. I mentioned then that I divided the plants, cut off all the rotten rots and cut most of the good roots.
Some members were shocked that I cut so many roots and did it just before dormancy. I mentioned Asians sometimes cut all the roots to stimulate growth.
So for a follow-up the plants have extensive new roots and 10% have flowered already in only 3 months from the root pruning during a non-flowering season. Remember these were large healthy plants, just bad roots in the pot and too many outside. I give this example as an exception to the generalization of waiting until you see growth of new roots. But do not try it unless you feel comfortable with judging the condition of a plant.
Just because the medium is hard is no reason to re-pot immediately. Most probably it is very pot bound. Hawaiians use mostly bark or coconut. Neither of which is a problem. Wait to the beginning of spring and re-pot whether you see new roots or not. It is root growth you want to see not necessarily leaf production. New roots would be better but if the plant is in too bad a medium or too pot bound it may not develop new roots.
All Cattleya grow in one direction along a rhizome. Now the exception. They can split at the end and grow in two or more directions. Especially if it hits the wall of the pot. At that point they are really growing as multiple plants. They can be divided at the this point easily, when they are large enough to divide.
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jerry  |