In the ongoing saga of my little Half-ID "Bronze Beauty" who may also be Guaricattonia Lawless Gloriana, I must admit to several rookie errors. I certainly didn't start off on the right foot when I cracked off her tag and next-to-bloom growth. Somewhere in there, I sunburned her, causing several leaves to drop.

When it came time to divide and repot, I totally lost my nerve when I saw the gnarly, knotted mess of lava rock she was potted in and just drop-potted the whole thing in bark mix. The plant just did not look happy and the only new growth was coming up smack in the center of the whole mess--clearly no room for the rhizome. About a month later, I decided to man up and hack it. And hack it, I did!

Of course, it had suffered some root loss since my first sorry attempt at repotting. I couldn't find the ends of the rhizome--it had grown in a spiral around the pot, I think.



After my first cut, you can see the new growth just to the right of my thumb.


Second cut:


There were six leafless backbulbs with surprisingly good roots.


The other half of that piece had five good growths and a developing eye (smack in the center of the pic).


I ended up with 4 pieces. They all had at least 4 growths. One division had a new growth and the other two had developing eyes (I think).


I wasn't sure what to do with the leafless backbulbs. I know some people throw them away but this was supposed to be a practice plant for me and they had pretty decent roots, so I wanted to see what I could make of them. I've been reading a blog about developing an orchid collection from backbulbs, but I didn't get a clear idea there how I should treat these, so I just stuck them in a pot with bark mix and threw them back in with the herd. Should I be treating them differently? Is there anything I can do to them to stimulate development?

While my little dividelings were convalescing from my hack job, their mom paid them a visit.