| Kid A
You have a couple of issues.
That is a great number of sheats and you may have an outstanding bloom. Part of it is because you let it go so long without a re-pot.
This is also the problem since re-potting a greatly overgrown Cattleya is a guessing game.
You can move it to a larger pot and leave the entire root ball as is. This works well many times and can give good results for a couple of years.
I find that this technique eventually causes the middle of the plant to die while new growth goes around the outside. At that point the best solution is to divide the plant and start from smaller pieces. This is not fast and can take a couple of years.
You can try to remove the medium and separate the roots, but often this is impossible and it can easily disturb the flowering.
I would leave it until the flowers bloom. It should be great. Then when you see new roots starting re-pot the plant. Try to remove the old medium and loosen the roots and if you can not loosen the roots, then decide if you want to leave the roots and just move it to a larger pot or if you want to divide it now.
Like I said the issue is not serious now and you have a couple of years before you may have to divide it. I had one last 6 years this way, that my wife did not want to divide. Six years was too long, we lost it.
__________________
jerry  |