How to Repot Ice Orchids
Orchids are elegant plants that bear long flower stalks and stacks of blooms. The Just Add Ice company sells phalaenopsis orchids that they recommend watering with ice cubes. These are warm-growing orchids that need adequate warmth and humidity, loose potting media and good nutrition. Just Add Ice orchids also require repotting at least every two years give them room to grow. Repot your Just Add Ice orchid at the right time and with the right care to continue successful growing.
Repot your Just Add Ice orchid when its roots outgrow its pot or it stops growing or blooming. If the orchid is 1 to 2 years old, repot regardless of growing or blooming habits. Complete this process from February to June, when the blooms fade and the plant goes into dormancy.
- Orchids are elegant plants that bear long flower stalks and stacks of blooms.
- If the orchid is 1 to 2 years old, repot regardless of growing or blooming habits.
Prepare a new pot in advance. Choose a pot that has a drainage hole and is one size larger than the orchid's old pot. Fill the pot half full of fern matter, peat moss, orchid potting mix, vermiculite, gravel, bark or another non-soil potting medium. Orchids require loose, airy material for good drainage and aeration.
Trim any dead leaves and finished flower stalks off the orchid, then turn the pot on its side and tap it to loosen the potting medium. Grasp the orchid at its base and gently ease it from the old pot.
Clean old potting medium off the roots and spread them. Trim off any roots that are diseased or broken, then hold the root system under running water to clean it off.
- Prepare a new pot in advance.
- Trim any dead leaves and finished flower stalks off the orchid, then turn the pot on its side and tap it to loosen the potting medium.
Set the orchid's root system in the new pot on top of the potting medium, and pack more potting medium over and around the roots to secure the plant. Fill the pot until the potting medium reaches the orchid's base, so that the orchid has the same planting depth in its new pot as it had in its old one.
Add 1 inch of water to settle the potting medium, then put it back in a north- or south-facing window. Orchids do best with indirect light and can burn in direct light.
Tip
Test your planting by gently lifting the orchid at its base. If the pot comes with the orchid, iyour planting is secure. If the pot falls off, pack the planting medium down more firmly to secure the plant.
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Tips
- Test your planting by gently lifting the orchid at its base. If the pot comes with the orchid, iyour planting is secure. If the pot falls off, pack the planting medium down more firmly to secure the plant.
