So, what is better than one Brassia? Why two Brassia of course.
Here is how my first division went. Bear in mind, I've never divided before, and this is my first experience with potting a Brassia. (holy root mass batman!)
Before doing anything:
After soaking the whole pot for about an hour so that the roots are easier to work with:
I tried to gently wiggle the plant out of its home, but it wouldn't budge. So after a few minutes staring at it thinking, I decided to cut away the plastic container. I quickly found out why I couldn't get it out of the container, so many roots jammed in there it wasn't pretty. Thankfully, most of the roots were healthy. As far as I can tell anyway, I found out that Brassia's roots are a bit different than the Phal's I have.
Then I set about removing the old media, small bark and some perlite.
After getting most of the media out, (except the stuff wedged into the top as you can see in this photo) I pulled the plant apart a bit and selected where I wanted to cut the rhizome. The spot seemed logical as the plant naturally grew different sections here. Dividing on this point gave me two plants, one section with 3 PBs, the other with 6 PBs. In hind sight, I probably could have divided it once more based on what I have read (3 to 4 PBs per division), but as this was my first divide, I decided to just do one.
Then came the scary part. Actually cutting the rhizome. I cut it rather easily with a single use razor blade and promptly sprinkled cinnamon on the cut.
After the dreaded cutting of the rhizome, which in hindsight wasn't so awful, I had to untangle the roots. This proved to be a very lengthy process as the roots were all sorts of tangled and I was being very cautious to not break any. Sadly I did break a few, but a little cinnamon sprinkle, and I moved on, removing the rest of the old media to produce this division.
Then I set about selecting which pot to use for each division. I purposley chose slightly larger pots even though I assume my plants will focus on root growth instead of blossoming next year. I can wait, I'd rather have healthy plants first and pretty things to look at later.
After selecting the pot I wanted to use, I put some charcoal on the bottom. Hopefully this will allow easy drainage.
Then after I placed about an inch of the new medium in the bottom, I started to place the plant and the medium in at the same time. I tried to put the roots on one side of the pot as I read that you should do this to encourage the plant to spread in one direction, instead of all over the place.
Then, after all that work, I have this to show for it:
Both repotted and hopefully happy in their new home. I put some moss on top for a nice look and hopefully to trap some water that will evaporate creating some humidity. The mix I used was about 50% coir, 20% small bark, 20% perlite, and 10% charcoal. The last thing I did was to put in some bamboo skewers to help with watering.
I think for my first try, I did pretty good. Though I must confess I am a little nervous that I might have screwed something up, so if any one else with more experience has some tips, please let me know. If I did something very wrong and my plants are going to die, please tell me so I can hopefully fix it.
Total time to Soak, remove, divide, untangle, repot.......about 3 hours. Time well spent in my book.
-D