I was gifted my first orchid around Christmas and I’ve been learning as I go. She’s been in bloom since I got her and I think she’s doing well enough but I’m worried about repotting/eager to repot her.
I have orchid bark mix and another clear pot ready to go. I water it by bottom soak and a lil bit on the top roots when the roots are silvery and not so plump.
I’m under the impression that I shouldn’t repot while it’s in bloom? So I’ve been waiting patiently for the flowers to fall off and was expecting the spike to start dying so that I could trim the spike and repot.
My flowers are just are starting to fall off and it’s starting to bloom/do something again at that next eye. Now I’m not quite sure what’s best for it.
What I want to do is maybe cut the spike back to where it’s starting to bud again and repot it. I also haven’t fertilized it so I should maybe do that too?
What’s my best course of action?
Thank you🙏🏼😅
by Suspicious-Web-5637
2 Comments
My first one that’s a year old has been basically blooming since I got it, and I repotted it right away and again last week, and I haven’t lost any flowers either time.
Mine also lost its first blooms about four months in and started growing new flowers from active nodes on the same spikes. Then it grew two new leaves and a brand new flower spike. Now it’s got three spikes that all have flowers, but it also has a fungal infection, so I had to repot again.
I had it in a regular pot (little airflow) because when I first repotted it, I realized the orchid pot I bought for it was too big. But, I didn’t know that until I took it out of its nursery pot, so I went with what I had on hand. It was fine in that pot for a long time, but the lack of airflow and old medium created a fungal infection. Trimmed dead roots, sprayed it down with a copper fungicide, and repotted in fresh medium in a plastic orchid pot a week ago. The flowers are fine.
My point is, if you want to repot, do it. In my experience, the flowers and flower spike will be fine and continue blooming. I have two phals, both I repotted while in bloom and haven’t lost any flowers yet🤞
My 2 cents; I have the luxury problem that my orchids are always in bloom or pushing out new spikes – plus Im impatient. So I went a head and carefully repotted them anyway whilst in bloom.
One I had to do some serious root pruning – but she kept her flowers and pushed out a new spike even. After a while I could see her leaves wilting a bit, so I removed her ‘old’ flower spikes so she would have more energy for new root development.
Another one had all healthy roots, I only had to put it in a bigger pot with new soil ( I did remove the little death cage around the stem though). She also still has all her flowers – zero loss and still look just as beautiful as before.
If were you (since the roots look healthy) repot without root pruning, remove the little cage around the stem and get some nice orchid bark instead of the moss. Even if she would lose some flowers – they grow back
Enjoy 😄