Galeopetalum repot - urgent help needed!
 

I got this Galeopetalum Starburst 'Parkside' at Hauserman's last month. It's roots were pushing up out of the pot, and it looked like some new ones were coming, so I decided to repot. You can see what I found!

I soaked it for a bit before taking it out. The roots have grown in circles around the outside of the pot and are intertwined. At first, I got a few roots loose. Then I broke the tip of one. Then it became apparent there were a lot that are really stuck together and I cracked another. I can see decomposing spag in the middle and some rotten roots. What should I do?

Should I just repot in a bigger pot as is and wait for them to disentangle more on their own? I'll try getting some of the spag out with tweezers. Also, I was going to put it in just a slightly larger pot. Should I go bigger? I'm repotting into orchiata.

Holding tight until I get some advice...

What a beautiful set of roots! The sphag looks good. I'd just drop it into a slightly larger pot (maybe an inch bigger in diameter, fill in with bark and let it continue to do its thing. The next time you repot, the roots will have had a chance to spread out a bit, and the sphag will break down a bit making it easier to remove. So maybe revisit it in a year or so.

Thanks for responding so fast! I will go that route. I do not want to break any more roots, and the plant looks healthy - it was just bursting out of the pot!

The most important thing in repotting is preserving roots. Sympodial orchids grow outward, away from their old roots. Old medium isn't a big deal because the plant will make new roots in new medium. Rot is caused by poor growing conditions (temperature, humidity, air at roots) and not by old medium.

I'd also reiterate the above and just drop into a new pot. That spag looks good to me.

However, this is plant that really likes ample moisture at the roots and orchiata might dry too quickly. You might consider continuing with spag in the new pot.

Thank you all! I ended up just taking the whole thing and plopping it into a bigger pot, and surrounding that with orchiata. There is only about a half inch of bark around it (moved from square to round). It's obviously been happy being cramped in like that, but the roots stuck up over the top of the smaller pots I had.

That's why I panicked. Apart from my mounted miniatures, I mostly have regular phalaenopsis, so when I repot, I'm trying to shake off as much medium as I can, and the usually roots spread out on their own. These look so strangled.


I was worried about that too. The original pot only had small drainage holes at the bottom, so it must have been pretty wet in there, and clearly it liked that. I'll definitely keep an eye on it. It's in a clear pot, and I can see some of the roots through the bark. I don't want to have to repot it again, but if it's just drying out too much I'll buy some high quality spag to put it in. I did leave the compact ball of it in the middle of the roots, so hopefully it won't be too big of a shock.

I think that with the original sphagnum still in the middle, there's plenty to keep it moist enough. The next repot in a year or so you can work on a moisture-retentive mix for the longer term.

I am one that always removes the old medium but, when I potted up my new Zygopetalum, I carefully removed the entire rootball/medium block from their old pot, set this in the new pot and filled the pot with NZ sphagnum moss (It is good quality moss and the clear plastic pot has plenty of holes for good air circulation). These roots crack and break far too easily so it just isn't worth trying to remove the old medium.

I am growing mine indoors so I need to be careful not to get water on the leaves as there is not much air circulation.