Pot size for Angraecum sesquipedale in SH?

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Just received above plant. Now in 4" diameter round plastic; coarse bark mix; the single fan is 6" tall and 10" across. I have not unpotted it to look at the roots but it appears to be in active growth.

I can easily provide warm temperatures all year and keep it in growth.

What pot size would people suggest?

[Ray]

It's likely to lose most of those roots during the adjustment process, and once you strip all of the current medium out of the rot mass, a similar-, or slightly bigger pot seems reasonable.


Ray Barkalow
firstrays.com

[Leafmite]

For the sesquipedale, I used a no. 8 basket pot. (I don't grow S/H and used red lava rock.)

[estación seca]

Thanks!

[estación seca]

It's been in one of Ray's drilled 1-quart tubs for about 6 weeks. It had a lot of nice roots when transplanted, almost none of which were visible once repotted. One short root was aerial and is still above the clay balls. Another began aerial then dived down. It turned dark quickly, but still is not mushy, and if I forget to water it dries to normal orchid root feel, so it's not dead yet. The plant never turned a hair, never dropped a leaf and is pushing a new leaf. I don't know how fast new leaves should elongate on well-grown Angraecums. I've been watering with Ray's MSU blend at 1/4 tsp/gallon (around 40-45 PPM N) and have used KelpMax twice so far.

[PaphLover]

How's it doing now, estación seca? I'm getting an Angraecum sesquipedale in March and was hoping to try s/h with it as well. Do tell! Photos too?

[estación seca]

The photo against the wood door is just now. The other photo was a few nights ago. The orange tape measure in the second photo is marked in inches, and 1 inch = 2.54cm.

The plant still has all the leaves it came with in early June 2015. It also looks like it still has all its roots. It grew steadily when in the house this summer and early fall. (Our early fall is like most people's midsummer, but much hotter.) Humidity was 40%-60% then. Temperatures were mid to upper 90s F / 33-37C daytime, low 80s F / upper 20sC at night.

When it arrived, the leaf (currently the longest leaf) before the floppy leaf was just emerging. The floppy leaf developed a rapidly-advancing soft spot when it was emerging and still vertical. I cut it out with an X-acto knife. The leaf matured but is floppy. The plant has a number of other dark brown spots all over that don't progress. I don't know what causes them.

I moved it to my sunroom in late October. Humidity is 50%-70%. Temperatures are not below 60 F / 15.5C at night, up to mid 80s F / 27-30C by day. After reading more about fertilizer on the First Ray's site I cut the fertilizer dose in half in October, to 1/8 tsp per gallon for all my S/H plants. This is about 21PPM nitrogen. I also add a quarter of my tap water to give more calcium and magnesium; the MSU blend is now quite dilute.

The plant is growing faster now. I don't know whether that is because of higher humidity, or it finally got settled into the semihydroponic conditions.

It started leaning when I left it in one orientation for a couple of weeks. I reversed it to keep it growing straight upright. Like the Vandas, I try to keep the plane of the leaves aligned with the sun. I generally try and have the emerging leaf point at the sun.

I think I just missed getting flowers this winter, and hope it flowers next winter.

I'm going to try more warm-growing Angraecums in S/H.

[PaphLover]

Thanks for the great in-depth update. Looks like a happy plant!