Saturday, March 16, 2013

Removing a Keiki - Saving an orchid.




This is spaghnum moss which you can use as a medium to repot your Phalaenopsis orchid. I buy this stuff in dried out brick form, so it needed a few minutes to soak (and expand) in water before I used it. I had just enough to repot my keiki and give my other Phalaenopsis a new home. Once the moss is damp (not dripping) and pliable enough to use, take some in your hands and carefully wrap it around the base of your keiki enclosing the roots. Be careful! Don’t press too hard as those roots are very delicate. When that’s done you will carefully push it into a terracotta pot, centering the leaves and keeping them above the sphagnum moss line. Add more moss to the pot as needed to secure the orchid without being too tightly squeezed. That’s it!


A general rule of thumb for a Phalaenopsis orchid pot size is that it should be about 1/3 to 1/2 the diameter of the leaf spread. Terracotta allows the roots to “breathe” and of course there are special orchid pots that have additional slits in the side to allow air flow. I didn’t have any of those in the size I needed on hand so I went with the standard version of a terracotta pot. Your pot should be clean and sterile, so if you had something growing in it before, make sure to give it a good scrubbing first and rinse any residue off completely. Phalaenopsis orchids prefer daytime temps of 70-80 degrees F and to be allowed to slightly dry out in between waterings.