If kept in a continuously humid environment, a rootless Cattleya that is not diseased and still has sufficient stored energy can survive long enough to send out new roots or new growth that will form roots. The humid environment might be a greenhouse, which I assume is what people have in mind when they talk about a keep-it-dry method. They arenÂt watering the plant, but the relative humidity is high. ThereÂs also the sphag and bag method, which is basically a mini greenhouse. A rootless plant is kept in a plastic freezer bag that has a layer of moist Sphagnum moss in the bottom. Neither of these methods alone are a sure bet. The plant will become weaker and eventually more dehydrated, which is just what it does not need while trying to recover. To ensure success and to make it happen quickly, you give the plant what it does need - water, light, and nutrients. For a few hours each day, or overnight each night, set the plant in a container of water deep enough to completely cover the rhizome. Even without roots, it will absorb water. And if you include water-soluble nutrients when you do this, they will be absorbed also. One of the simplest and most directly beneficial foods to use for this purpose is honey. Dissolve enough in the water to make it an amber color, rinse the rhizome off when youÂre done, and itÂs that simple. Plain sugar works also, but it promotes mold. When itÂs not sitting in water, put the plant in the bag with the moist sphag and hang it directly under a fluorescent light or set it in a pot of wetter sphag and put it in a sunny window sill. The Cattleya will not die before new roots or new growth and roots form.

I would check out your other cyms and repot them if they need new compost. You should repot every two to three years as a standard routine. On the rotting bulb. It may be totally a waste of time to mess with it. You need to pull or cut off all the old roots and the rotted bulbs. You need to peel off the dried up leaf bases and see what the condition of the good looking bulbs are like. If they are any bit spongy then they are gone. On repotting be sure to set the bottom of the bulbs on a mound with compost depressesd around the base of the plant so that water will drain off away from the bulbs. Be sure your pots have excellent drainage. And water carefully during cool weather if you have new growths coming along. Think that is about it?

That sounds like an excellent plan. Yes, and rocks are your friend there, but then again, the stem's eminently ready for being somewhat tightly staked, isn't it? There may be some truth to the folk wisdom concerning pronouncing 'plicatilis' in a Donald Duck voice aiding the rooting process. If I may be so forward, can you spare a cutting for a brother? I'll be in AZ in December and would pay shipping costs gladly. I'd love to grow this one again.

As far as too-dry roots, should I have just sprayed them more? Or should I have pruned less off the roots in the first place, and maybe kept some of the soil around them? They didn't have all that much mass, and I did wonder about that. My husband kept telling me, don't cut its roots! Even if you use a soil that allows you to use a much larger pot than you could use (effectively) when using a water-retentive medium, a ficus will usually colonize the soil to the degree the root/soil mass can be lifted from the pot intact - so it doesn't fall apart when you pull it from the pot. That's how I judge when a plant would benefit from a repot ..... but I'm using a high quality medium. I said that so I can say, if it's been more than a year in the same pot and the soil wasn't fully colonized by roots, there's something amiss. The plants might be reacting adversely to one or more of your soil's ingredients, or to how it's structured. In container media, that there is nothing phytotoxic (poison to plants) in the soil and how favorably (to the plant) the soil is structured are the most important considerations. It's not the soil's job to provide nutrition, that's your/our job. The soil's job is to provide a ratio of water to air that doesn't prove limiting to the plant, and it's better for the plant if you err on the side of more aeration than needed than more water than needed. The former is only limiting if you can't keep up with the plant's water needs. The later is a limitation any time you water appropriately - to beyond the point of saturation. This is a ficus repot of a F benjamina v "Too Little": After most of the soil has been removed: After all the root work was done. Note I kept only fine roots, the workhorses that do the lion's share of the heavy lifting: Repot completed - 90% of the top (branches and foliage) removed. It's pretty apparent I'm not too bashful about removing huge %s of roots, and the only trees I've ever tented were junipers of one species that I had grafted Shimpaku juniper (a variety of chinensis) branches to. I often tent hard to root cuttings, however. Even though conventional "wisdom" says you shouldn't prune the top of the plant to balance the volume of roots to shoots, those of us who collect trees in leaf from the wild or transplant/repot trees in leaf know it's foolish to think one size fits all. It's very often requisite that a significant fraction of the top be removed if the root system is weak or you judge it insufficient to support the top mass. After a few repots, you'll get better at making that judgment. The kitty litter contains *only* bentonite clay, and NOT clumping, NOT scented. Keeps its form when soaked, frozen, and thawed. OK, good. Was there a lot of dust in it? Fine bentonite forms a slippery, slimey paste that expands when it gets wet. I use it in Kokedama and in the dams that must be built to hold soil on top of tree plantings on flat stone slabs Al, I would feel very good about pruning. I don't see buds, but the tree-lets were in good shape and putting out new leaves before...before I tried to help them. Be patient. You can always take it off (branches) - harder to put it back on. Questions: --Are you talking about topping them above a branch? Just saying that's something you COULD do if you like - not a suggestion, just an observation. I do it all the time on very large plants. Another "story". Imagine how tall this tree was when I chopped it back. Does it look like a bonsai? No? Much better - right? No? this spring after repotting into training pot: Taken last Fri as it comes into leaf: Won't that get me two shoots/trunks at each cut, or a funny joint? No. The top branch becomes the new leader and the branch below it gets restrained. You'll prune it so it's growing horizontally. Changing a branch's position from vertical to horizontal also significantly changes the amount of energy that flows into that branch. The tree will always pay more attention to the branches growing vertically. Would I choose one branch, wire it up straighter, and remove the other? See what I just offered. Will that joint be strong enough? ;-) This is a tree in a put, you're not going to hang a tire swing off the branches or a chainfall so you can use it to hoist cars. It'll be fine. --Cut back a third in height? More? Whatever you like, but wait until the tree recovers. For now, just prune the branches. I can help guide you in that process. --If I take off the slender little twigs and actual branches that now go the wrong direction, will the trunk put out completely new growth from old wood? Yes. There are already dormant buds immediately distal to the point where every leaf that was ever on the tree was attached ...... and if that's not enough, the tree will form adventitious buds at random if it's healthy and really likes it's growing conditions. It seems like it might.... You're right. --Would it be better to repot it (them) into a different soil or is it too late? I don't have a good sense about what kind of job your soil will do. I'm not at all a fan of coir. Every experiment I ever did with it ended up with the plants in coir or CHCs faring nowhere as well as plants in pine bark and/or peat. Even in view of the fact I was using appropriate work-arounds for several of coir's shortcomings. This the soil mix I made today, which I could use tomorrow to repot. I was attempting to come *closer* to 5-1-1 but with some Turface added: There was no image. It would be great if you could come up with something that resembles one of these, or even a combination: [5 parts?] 3 cf Gro-well Soil Conditioner (composted forest product, sure looks like the composted pine fines photos to me...at least closer than coir???) [1 part?] 4 gallons Perlite [1/2 part?] 2 gallons of coir (peat moss substitute? ...feels similar to peat moss in texture...and that isn't very large proportion of it...) [1/2 part?] 2 gallons of MiracleGro Potting Mix (peat moss substitute) 2 C Osmocote 5 small handfuls of gypsum (~1/2 C?) [2 parts?] ~1 cf Turface MVP If you think you have a medium that drains reasonably well and will be adequately aerated if we get rid of the perched water, using ballast can make a very large difference by nearly eliminating all saturated soil with as very simple trick of science. This explains how it works. Al