| Megan: the point of a basket it sortof to eliminate the needt o disturb the plants through repotting. If the media starts to go to pot, you can just tease it out with your fingers or a waterhose, or something.
As for drier rests, some of the species do need a bit of a dry off. C. walkeriana, nobilior and a handfull of the other Brazillian bifoliates come from central parts of brazil, where the rains slack off for the winter months, but humidity is still high. The plants get moisture from mists and dews and the occasional rain, but in essence, they go dormant and take a rest.
Some of the upland labiate species, especially C. aurea, dowiana, rex and warsewiczii have a similarly drier winter, which also includes a concurrent increase in light, as they live among tropical hardwoods which lose some or all of their leaves in the drier season.
For both of these groups, the drying off is nowhere near as severe as, say, a Nobile Dendrobium, which are subject to very clear-cut wet/dry cycles due to monsoons and their mountainous habitats. I just make sure that those plants are completely and thoroughly dry, between waterings, and I don't water as heavily as I would during the growing season. Hybrids, especially complex ones that involve species that have no drier winter should be treated pretty much the same, all year. In short, Cattleya-alliance plants do not need a dry rest, per se, but there are a few plants that will benefit from being kept drier when not blooming or in active growth. Many people find C. dowiana very challenging and suceptible to rot, until they learn to respect the dormancy and allow the roots to completely dry off, in winter. After all, if a plant is not actively growing, it is going to need significantly less water than when it is. all that fast growth and plumping up and such is driven by water filling vacuoles of the cells and stretching them to their ultimate size. The fact that the plants retain their leaves, though, does say something about their "dormancy." Leaves do transpire and pull water up from the roots, so the plant needs enough to maintain those leaves and not get too wrinkly looking in the pseudobulbs.
Again, though, this is very specific advice for a few species that do experience a noteable seasonal shift. This information does not extrapolate to all Cattleya-type hybrids, or even all Cattleya species.
-Cj  |