When to repot an oncidium sharry baby?

[waldo]

I picked up a oncidium sharry baby that is in full bloom and has more flower spikes in various stages of growth. Very nice healthy plant but its incredibly root bound. When would be a good time to repot it?

[78Terp]

I hear those in particular love to be root bound. Since I potted mine, it hasn't bloomed and it is now starting to get tight in the pot. So I am hoping bloom time is near. It will have 4 mature new growths since repotting soon.

[Carolla]

You can repot when it has new growth with new roots starting. When you repot, the medium will be changed and the old roots are not adapted to the new conditions and will not do so well, the new roots will grow and adapt to the new conditions (the actual structure of the roots can be different depending on the conditions its grown in). The good news is that Sharry Baby is pretty darn tough and adaptable - you might set it back but are unlikely to kill it. Mine put out a bloom shoot this year that was over 50" long with over 120 flowers on it!

I've only had it a year or two and it came pretty much bare root and blooming - it was obviously a chunk off of a massive plant, with lots of roots and just stuffed in a pot. None of the roots had taken hold of the smallish pot it was in at the green house I bought it at. I sort of jammed it into a makeshift semi-hydro pot - the biggest thing I had for it - and had roots hanging out by the handfulls, as well as stuffed into the pot. It thrived, in spite of my "wonderful" care and bloomed like mad and is starting a new p-bulb. I will be able to repot it soon, but still don't have a pot the right size, they are either too small or too big or not suitable for semi-hydro methods, which have worked well for this plant.

Anyway, I'd recommend looking for a new growth with new roots about 1/2" long or so on it, then repotting it. Probably after its done blooming, so you don't stress it and have it lose the flowers. Usually the new growth seems to come on then anyway.

[waldo]

Thank you. I figured I would need to wait, I just wasn't sure if it would suffer being so rootbound. There is one new growth on it right now but its pretty small. I don't know if there is room for anything else to grow, its really stuffed in a small pot. I can't even really see the medium, its mostly just coils of roots.

I hope mine does as well for me as yours has. I sometimes have difficulty getting orchids to rebloom. I have a smaller variety of sharry baby, I thinks its the red fantasy so it stays a bit more compact.