Advice on transplanting Den. hercoglossum

[TylerK]

About three weeks ago I unpotted my Den hercoglossum with the intention of transferring it into S/H only to find that the moss it was potted in was extremely compacted. It was pretty clear that regardless of how I ended up potting it the old medium had to go. I soaked the plant and did my best with a pair of tweezers to remove the compacted sphagnum from between the roots.

The problem....the roots are/were quite fine, and four hours later when I had gotten most of the moss out I also figured that I had removed about 1/3 of the roots. Quite a hack job considering how long it took, and there are still bits of moss that I just can't get to.

If I'd put this thing right into S/h the remaining roots (there's still quite a large root ball) and the sphag attached to them would just rot creating quite a nasty mess in the pot, so instead I've just kept it bare root. I pasted on some rooting hormone and have been giving it a daily soak.

The rooting hormone has really done its job and there was an explosion of root growth from the base of most of the canes, the largest of which are about 1cm long now. They're much thicker and more white than the old roots and have bright green tips (also unlike the old roots).

It would seem to be a great time to transfer it into S/h but the question remains as to what I should do with the old roots. If they're going to rot away anyway it would seem logical to remove them before hand and not introduce that kind of contamination to the pot.

Does anyone have any thoughts/advice?

Thanks,

Tyler

[Zoi2]

Can you post a picture?
Joann

[TylerK]

lol. I could if I could find the battery charger for my camera. I'll take a look this weekend. I just moved a few weeks ago, and not surprisingly much of my stuff is still in boxes.

Tyler

[TylerK]

Ok. I found my battery charger and got a couple pictures.

I'm counting a minimum of 28 new roots after applying the rooting hormone.





How do you think I should proceed?

Tyler

[shadytrake]

Well I'm not the s/h expert but I have potted several Dens with worse roots than that and they are doing super fine in s/h. I just cut away the edges of the old ones and popped them into the s/h pot. One month later, I pulled them out and flushed the old roots and cut away the rest of the dead stuff.

It worked for me. Your roots look really good.

[TylerK]

Thanks

With the number of new roots starting, I'm fairly certain it will acclimate fairly well. I'm more concerned about what to do with the existing mature roots. There are so many of them I'm afraid when they rot they'll affect the health of the new roots. I guess I'll just have to make sure to flush often, and do what you did after a couple months....unpot and wash thoroughly.

Tyler