Hi all, First of all some general information, this is my first post so bear with me, I am located in the North Sydney, Australia and I am on the 9th floor of a high rise apartment. It is spring in Australia :) only about 1km from the harbour so doesn’t really get frost. My open glass balcony faces south east and get about 3 hours of early full direct sun 7am to 10 am. The glass in-between the posts have about 2 inch (5cm) gap between the glass and the balcony support post so some wind do get in. It is not windy, but with a constant light breeze. Well I just got 4 large well established pots of Cymbidium (2 currently in spike and flowering the other 2 had the spike removed by the former owner), according to the owner all 4 are from the same division and was potted 3 years ago. So I guess it has done well in the mainly black bark mix. Three separate problems 1. I broke the largest of the cymbidium plant pots which has about 15 to 20 front and back bulks in transporting with minimal plant damage, just a few creases and bent leaves but mainly all ok. This pot was about 20cm wide and was over flowing with bulbs. But now it is three separate plants of more or less equal size, and I stress with little or no leaf nor root damage. The roots are plump though some are squeegee but I guess that’s normal. In regards to above plant I REALLY want to replant all three clumps into a very large plastic pot 60cm wide and 50 cm deep large as a feature plant ie all three clumps in a triangle in this large pot, but I read in these posts that it should be potted in a smallish pot and the past owner tells me that the Cyms "wants" to be root bound? Is this because Cyms need free fast draining mix to stop root rot and because larger pot holds too much water for too long? If so I have seen compost bin with white 15cm diameter PVC pipes with lots (hundreds) of holes drilled into them to allow air into the compost so I was thinking that in a mix of 30%pine bark, 20%perlite, 20%coir and 20% expanded clay pebbles with 4 of these home made pvc pipes cut to depth of the pot and imbedded to the bottom of the pot between the plants and one in the centre of the pot will allow fast draining and airy mix? Do you think this will be ok? 2. One plant got a lot of leaf damage on all of the mature bulbs basically all the leaves bend fully on this crease, most of the leaves now flop on these crease about 10cm above the bulb, only on one immature new bulb with 10 to 15 cm leave length has no damage on this plant? Should I clip/prune the leaves on these bulbs? This one already had the spikes removed by the owner. 3. This is not problem but more of a dilemma, the other two plants are fine but should I re pot and freshen up the mix or do I leave them alone. It seems looking at the broken pot of the above Cym, the mix is now broken down to 50% small pine park and 50% almost like soil? Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated thank you in advance. ROBERT
G'day Robert, always good to see a fellow Aussie on here. Cymbidium's are usually epiphytes, which means they grow on other trees, so their roots aren't in the ground. They get their water from rain and humidity. So that set up you explained seems OK to me. I really wouldn't have any soil in the pot at all, but depends if they have been in the soil for a while they might be used to it. As for pruning the leaves...personally I wouldn't, but I've got a big yard, and it sounds like yours is a feature plant. There are people who have a lot more experience than me on this forum, so you should get an answer soon... Good luck mate. North Sydney....I'm a Manly supporter... Ed
I live on Berry Square Apt so only have one medium sized balcony. :( I'm not a league fan, but pity they lost the finals, more a football follower (soccer). Yeah after reading about thousand webpage’s I never came across anyone that did what I want to do above in regards to creating a feature plant in a large pot, but I am thinking it should be ok. Though as a novice I need some reaffirming, lol. I will mainly have Palms on one corner, Cymbidiums in the centre and will have some other low light hardy orchids that I ordered off the web in indoors. Hope they survive?
