Vanilla planifolia variegata

Got my first vanilla plant from Ecuagenera in mid-october. First couple weeks it was in the clay pot with sphagnum moss and branches free hanging. In such setup I rotted all bottom part - including all root ball and part of the main stem. Two cuttings with some aerial roots were saved. So, now I potted them into clay pot with bark and gave them something to climb on.
Plant is in the warm tank under the fan for increased air movement. Hope it will work:

Phragmipediums assessment and repotting

Last year I bought a few phragmipediums, mostly besseae hybrids, because they are just so pretty. They all were strong multigrowth plants from Ecuagenera. They lived in the larger tank and instead of growing they were continuously rotting their leaves off.
They did grow nice roots, but with regards to their foliage - it was just diminishing.
There could be many reasons for it - too humid air in the tank, not enough fertilizer, keeping them in saucers with water. So I decided change everything.
I started my yearly repotting ritual with phrags - fresh media will help.
Here is my mix - large sponge rock with small fir bark:



Then I add some river stones into mix:



Unpotted Eumelia Arias, nice roots:



Freshly potted in their new home:



I decided to move them on to bathroom windowsill. There is plenty of light, not as dry as the rest of the house, but also not as humid as tank.



From left to right:
Phrag. Hanne Popow, Eumelia Arias, Eric Young, Friz Schomburg.

Phrag. besseae repot

I decided to do something about new growth that was hanging out of the pot here.
According to advice from forum members, I needed to find wide and shallow container for it to fit long rhizome. At first I wanted to use plastic food container, but it looked too "foodsy", so I browsed through storage departments and came across see-through drawer organizers.
They look like glass but are actually hard plastic, so drilling holes at the bottom was very easy:



Here is how it works for my besseae with new growth. Unfortunately I broke off the very old fan, so there are two remaining:



Top up with sphagnum moss to prevent fast drying of the media:

About deliciosa spike

Adorable deliciosa plant in need of repotting was growing a spike.
Then I noticed that spike grows right down into moss - dirty green moss that had to be replaced long time ago:



So, I decided to repot and try to change direction of the spike. Unpotted, the roots look fine - all fim, some growing points:



It appeared that no matter how I turn the plant in the pot - the spike never looks up. I tried this and that and finally settled for the following:



I placed small piece of packing peanut under the spike and put the plant into tank making sure that light shines in the opposite direction:



At this point I think I did everything I could to help plant realize that spike shouldn't grow into moss. Hope it gets a hint. Also hope that repotting will not abort the spike...

Repotting paphs, again.

It became a real necessity because I noticed that I am rotting the roots in the Shultz bark mix they were currently growing. Of course most of them still have bunch of roots but comparing to the repotting pictures of plants when they got here - the root systems decreased quite significantly. It is all barks fault because I can never tell if it is dry or wet.
I would like to grow them in pure moss, but apparently paphs don't do good in sphagnum for the long run.
So, with help of knowledgeable folks on th Slipper Talk forum I created my own mix that has no bark whatsoever and contains the following ingredients: leca(clay pellets), chopped sphagnum moss, chc, perlite, chrcoal and coarse sand.
Here is how it looks like:



I really hope this will work.

Repotted paphs in the new media:

Paph. St.Swithin divided.

That wasn't my choice of course, I like large plants with many fans. All I wanted to do - repot and check the roots.
Well, during unpotting the 4 rhizomes fell into two parts:




At the same time roots were still tangled together.
After long attempts to untangle them without much breaking - here is what I got:



Two plants newly potted:



The larger plant has old previously bloomed fan and new growth that I was hoping would bloom soon. Now of course plant got a huge setback and probably won't bloom for a long while. Smaller plant got two small growth, one of which lost many bottom leaves to some type of brown rot.
I returned larger plant to a windowsill and placed smaller one into tank.
We'll see how it goes...

Phalaenopsis fasciata 'Shaffers'

Multiple old spikes on fasciata 'Shaffers' started to look yellowish and rough, so I decided to cut them off and repot the plant.
Two new spikes that I discovered last winter turned into basal keikis, so cutting off the old spikes might also help the plant to grow the keikis faster.
Unpotted it showed some new roots grown:



Potted into fresh moss:



I think it might look spectacular with three crowns when they all will be ready to bloom...

Phalaenopsis Vio Vio repotted

Phalaenopsis Vio Vio grew into large plant with lots of roots and was uncomfortably hanging over the edge of its clay pot. The roots were going up and on the sides from the pot and I was trying really hard to keep them from breaking every watering. Finally I decided to move it to a larger pot.
Unpotted:



Moved to a 5 inch clear plastic pot with slits:



I used Shultz bark mix - the only bark option we have here. It is fine but needs to be washed through to remove all the dirt out.
I wonder if the bud will drop after all these manipulations...

Phal. cornu-cervi 'red' - trying bark

Phalaenopsis cornu-cervi 'red' with its roots grew out of all containers that I was comfortable to have moss in. So I decided to try it in a bark mix.
The pot has slits on the sides but with the higher humidity in the tank it shouldn't be a problem.



Of course the only bark we have available here is Shultz mix which needs a little work before it can be used. I bought a bag to repot my multi paphs too, so I sorted out the bark pieces - larger for phals, smaller for paphs, removed ridiculously big pieces of wood and other garbage and washed out all dirt that was there. At the end I had nicely clean bark.
Plant is nice and healthy, it grew couple new spikes since I got it and now there is a new red bud:



Hope it will do ok in bark...

Repotting catts

I spent half a day yesterday moving some of my catts to larger pots. Not because they grew a lot of p-bulbs, but in the tank their roots gone really wild sticking out in every each direction and bursting out of pots.
I ripped out a big deal of good roots when trying to remove them from clay pots (that's a downside of clay with its porous nature - the roots grab on it for good).

Some of the plants had pots totally filled with roots:



and wouldn't want to move out of the pot at all. So I had to take a hammer and literally break the pot on some of them:



I took the pots couple sizes larger so I don't have to do it very often, but now need to watch out for overwatering.
Here they are all repotted:

Phal. stuartiana 'yellow' x 'green'

It is a new purchse and the tag really stated Phalaenopsis stuartiana 'yellow' x 'green'.



Plant came from Crystal Star Orchids and as always with their plants - the roots appeared quite nice during repotting:



Vendor noted that this plant needs to be kept a bit drier during winter and if it is going to be in the humid environment - it is better mounted. I don't like mounts so I decided to pot it into the net pot, hoping that moss will have a chance to dry out fast enough for stuartiana.

Phal. violacea var. sumatra

Phalaenopsis violacea var. sumatra arrived last summer totally dehydrated almost with no roots but with a small leaf start. After spending full time in the humidity trays it started some roots, grew another leaf, but bottom leaves stayed wrinkled.
Now in the orchid tank I noticed that bottom leaves don't look that bad anymore.
It is the time to graduate the plant from small clay pot to 3-inch plastic net pot (I just got a batch of 25 pots from ebay and will be gradually replacing 3-inch clay ones with them).
Roots look fine:



All repotted and ready to go back in the tank:

Neofinetia falcata `Shojo`

I finally found time to repot my one and only neofinetia.
The roots were ok:



I chose slightly larger pot but put small plastic net pot turned upside down under the base of the plant:



Neofinetia now lives in my orchid tank and gets high light. I am still hoping for blooms but doesn't look like I am going to get them this year. Maybe it needs to mature both new growths before flowering, I don't know.

Corningiana x Coral Isles

This is a poor relative of the plant from previous post, its reversed cross - corningiana x Coral Isles. It nearly died from root rot and was downpotted into smallest net pot with moss for a rescue.
Now I can see at least three new growing points on the roots:



So, it got promoted to the 2 and 1/2 inch clay pot now:


Hope the roots will continue to grow...

Phal. Coral Isles x corningiana repotting

I wanted to repot my cross of Coral Isles x corningiana because it was hanging froom one side of the small clay pot and keikis root was in a very awkward position.

In general I was pleased with roots conditions of this phal:



Small keiki that terminated unbloomed spike now has two own roots and the third one is poking out too:



I decided that I will not remove this keiki from the mother plant, so I potted the plant making sure that keiki roots are inside the moss too:

Gigantea repotting

I decided to repot my seedling of Phalaenopsis gigantea.
Partially because it was growing in very small clay pot and with largest leaf pulling on one side - pot was constantly tipping over from the slightest touch.
The other reason - I wanted to see what is going on in the roots department since they didn't look that good last time (that's why it had to downsize to the smallest pot).
This time roots don't look that bad:



There is not too many of them, but I was glad to see fresh growing tips and all the branches on the old brown root.

For the new potting I chose the plastic net pot. I found that in the humid environment of orchid tank they work the best - allowing moss to dry out faster and not showing as much of salts deposits and algae as my favorite clay pots:



Probably eventually and gradually I will move all my phals in the tank into net pots, at least those that grew out of two-and-a-half inch clay pots.

Lc. Love Knot 'Carmela's Blue'

Here is another dismounting.
I should not mount any plants anymore. They don't feel good in the house because of too low humidity and they grow disgusting stuff (mushrooms in my case) on the wood in the orchid tank with high humidity.
I had large piece of grape wood with two catts and very small vanda seedling mounted on it. They were doing well at first, but lately with all the heat and me missing waterings - vanda completely dried out and catts don't look too good either.
Catt. jenmanii grew its roots into wood too much so I had to leave it on the mount, but Lc. Love Knot 'Carmela's Blue' came off the mount easy and now is potted into clay pot with chc and enjoys spa treatment in the orchid tank:



New pseudobulb is coming out and roots have some green growing tips, I think it should be ok.

Phal. I-Hsin George

Ever since I got orchid tank I wanted to put my large specimen-sized George in there.
Being mounted on a large piece of grape wood, it would never fit the tank. At the same time I was having a real pain trying to keep its roots from drying out on the mount.
Finally I decided to be brutal and took George off the mount.
It was actually a good thing because part of the roots that was touching the wood rotted pretty badly, luckily it didn't spread to the stem.
I cut all the bottom part of the stem with old roots including two bottom leaves, so the root ball was big enough to snuggly fit the usual clay pot with slits(my orchids like those pots):



The long and narrow leaf that developed during the time George spent in the low-light conditions had to be trimmed too because now in the upright position it was in real danger of breaking together with the whole crown.

Now Phal. I-Hsin George is standing in the corner of the orchid tank.



Hopefully it will be ok...

Repotted javanicas

Got these two plants of Phalaenopsis javanica last spring from Ten Shin Gardens. They were supposed to be blooming sized but never bloomed yet.
I decided to put them both into heated propagation trays together with phalaenopsis seedlings to take advantage of hot and humid conditions of that "phal-paradise".
Both were repotted into fresh moss and clean pots to make sure that nothing funny gets into those trays.

Unpotted javanicas showed some new root growth:



Now potted into new pots with fresh sphagnum moss ready to go into humidity trays for their "orchid vacation":



Here I digged out an old picture of them on arrival, apparently they grew two new leaves each:



Does anybody have Phalaenopsis javanica? How do you convince it to bloom?

Maxillaria tenuifolia repotted but not divided

Roots started to stick out of the pot of Maxillaria tenuifolia and I decided to move it to a bigger one.

From the beginning I potted two very small rootless divisions of maxi into same pot to save the space and time watering, thinking that I will separate them after they both grow some roots.
Now, I thought, would be the good time to divide them into individual pots since both matured and grew more p-bulbs.

When I took maxillaria out of the pot I understood that separating those plants without serious root damage is an impossible task:



The roots of both plants tangled too much and filled the whole pot. I tried to swirl the roots in the water, but the ball proved to be pretty solid:



Finally I gave up, wrapped the whole thing in some fresh moss and slipped into larger plastic pot:



This is actually the only orchid that I grow in plastic pot with sphagnum moss and apparently it likes that.

Here is the picture from November 2011 when I just potted those two divisions:



Each plant had only two mature bulbs back then and look at them now! If only I could convince it to bloom now...