Potting Dilemma

[sandra]

I don't know how I'm going to successfully re-pot this dend. I gladly took it off a friends hands who claims he can't be bothered looking at an orchid plant or caring for one without flowers, that duffer! He had this plant in the same pot since he bought it, going on 2 years now. It's been growing like crazy lately and the roots are taking off, growing all along the outside of the entire pot and are stuck between the container it's in and the clay pot. The roots are also stuck to the outer clay pot. There's no way I know of getting the original pot out of the container to change the medium without damaging the roots.

So what am I supposed to do for the long health of this plant? Has anyone tackled this and successfully? Please tell me how!

[kmarch]

I once had a similar problem with a compot of mini-cattleyas. I soaked the entire pot, waterline above the top of the pot (some mix floated away but no worries, you're repotting anyway), for about 30-45 minutes. The clay pot itself was really soaked up good. Then before making any attempt to take the plant out of the pot, I "wiggled" the roots stuck to the outter surface of the pot free from the pot. If they are still stuck firm soak for another 10-15 min. All the soaking helps to loosen the roots and to make them more pliable, less succeptible to breaking. Once all the outter roots are free you can either break the clay pot with a few hammer blows and try to free the inner roots the same way or you can try to pull the plant from the pot. Eventhough I was extreemely careful I still damaged about 25% of the roots. Fortunately these Dens. grow roots pretty vigorously (as you can see) and a little root damage is nothing to worry about. Once it's free from the pot you can repot according to your practice.

Now.....hmmmm...havign said all of that....Dendrobiums like to be really pot bound. So eventhough the roots are all wild (as they should be) I wonder if this plant really needs repotting. Is the mix broken down? Is the plant wobbly in the pot (possibly indcating root loss in the pot)?

[turkeytaker]

I'd leave it in there. You can pick out the media with tweezers or the like, but that's always much more trouble than I care to expend. If you're worried about the outside roots getting damaged, you can always set the pot you have in a larger pot and anchor it with rocks.

Otherwise, I say the plant is happy and probably doesn't need to be yanked out of the current pot. I've got a few that I slapped in larger pots, with old nasty medium an all, and they do fine. The old medium decays enough to wash out, with regular flushing.

Very nice plant, btw. It's great to look at, even without flowers!

[sandra]

I can't get to the mix to check Kevin. The photo is deceptive because there's hardly any room to touch and feel. As well, I don't think I'm qualified to recognize if it is broken down. No, the plant isn't wobbly whatsoever.

With your and turkeytakers doubts on this needing repotting, I think I'll leave it alone for now as suggested. I'm just concerned for it's future so I'll save this post for future use.

As always, thanks.

[sandra]

Originally Posted by turkeytaker

Very nice plant, btw. It's great to look at, even without flowers!

My kind of thinking turkeytaker! I'm glad my friend didn't think so though!

[kmarch]

Originally Posted by sandra

...No, the plant isn't wobbly whatsoever.

The plant being firm in the pot indicates to me that the roots in the pot are most likely healthy too. I think you're right just to leave it for now. I've too seen these placed pot and all in a larger pot with a little fine bark, coir, or even gravel inbetween the 2 pots.

[sandra]

OK, will leave it alone Kevin but you're not off the hook yet...lol. I'm going to post another thread on an oncidium I received from this same friend.

I'll get the photos and upload them in a minute...

[tom499]

As long as the plant stays healthy i wouldnt repot either

[palito]

I've read several times that dendrobium plants prefer to be underpotted and tight? is this true? or just another myth?

Dendrobiums do like tight shoes. They bloom much better. And they resent having their roots disturbed. They would grow like mad for me, I'd repot them, but they would never bloom. Finally I got disgusted and I left them alone. Then they bloomed. This year I got more blooms than I ever had before. Now I'm with turkeytaker. I usually just pot up. That is, move the den into a slightly bigger pot. I don't know where the old medium goes, I think the roots literally eat it, but the plant doesn't miss a beat, and I don't seem to have a problem with rotting roots from decaying medium, either. I usually wait until roots are growing outside of the pot before I do put it in a larger pot.

[sandra]

I'm back with similar questions regarding this dend. I'm beginning to think that for safety sake to repot this sooner rather than later. I watered the plant well over 10 days ago and the media is just now dry enough for another watering. It's been very hot here, high humidity and expect this should have needed watering long before now. The media is retaining the water and although I'm not able to get my fingers down into it because of all the growth I'd disturb, what I have been able to feel, feels broken down and soft (the media).

While all this new growth is occurring, is it not advised to repot just yet? Should I wait until autumn before doing this?

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

The exact time to repot is when the new growths are just starting new roots, which should be a lot of new roots. Break the pot if need be, and take a sterilized tool, poke it thru the rootball, and holding the plant as best you can without hurting it, pull down on thee tool. Repeat this over and over, like coming the roots until you have most of the mix out and the roots free of each other. At some point you can switch over to plucking the old mix out and cutting out the dead and broken roots. I use a sterilize pruner which works well for striping and for plucking and cutting. This will do a lot of damage, but the new roots coming from the new growths will replace all the broken roots, and you wont find a lot of living roots anyway, as Dens don't keep roots going for very long.

But I hope you can see the need to NOT do this at any other time, as the plant will loose too many needed roots and WON"T replace them at any other time of year as the hormones for root development are missing. Holding the plant over another year won't be as difficult as it seems, since the plants like lots of water while growing, and like to be quite dry when not growing, so in winter, just water once a month or maybe one iin 3 weeks, and it will be fine.

[jerrymeola]

Dens like to be pot bound but you can take it too far.

My wife's favorite bloomed for 8 months every year and she did not want it touched. After 5 years the roots outside the pot (still a four inch pot) were 10 inches high and 15 inches long. It did fine as long as I watered it everyday, but when I was not around to water it, it started to suffer. It was actually living as a bare root plant. The roots in the pot could not get enough water to sustain the plant, although they looked very healthy. Re-potting was drastic.

For yours I would break the clay pot and cut the plastic pot off. The roots will be like a rock and even with a long soak you may not be able to untangle the roots.

You have two choices - cut the roots drastically with a knife about a half inch all around and check them in about 4 months to remove dead roots - or place the entire root ball in a pot one inch larger.

Both techniques have their bad points. For my wife's I re-potting the entire root ball and it is slow to adapt. She would have killied me if it died. If it had been mine I would have cut it drastically and hoped for the best.

[sandra]

Thank you Cynthia and Jerry. This seems way over my head. I don't think I'm equipped for this major undertaking in repotting this.

Jerry, what harm or damage would placing this plant in a pot 1 inch larger cause? If I cut the dead roots now and repot it, would I need to check it again later on?

Any realistic optimism in this plant flowering if I keep it as is without changing the media if I get on a heavier watering regimen with it?

[Cynthia, Prescott, AZ]

I think the plant would be just fine if you leave it till next spring. The new growth that I can see already looks quite substantial, and a strong new growth is what is needed for flowering.