Repotting Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

Aerial roots on Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

     I repotted my Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour' yesterday, from it's original 3"  pot to a 4.5" clear plastic pot.  I did not do this because the orchid was ready for a repotting, but because I was worried that its only visible growing roots were sticking straight up into the air, with no way to reach into the media.

New roots on Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

     Turns out, I needn't have worried too much.  When I removed the orchid from its pot, I found many new root tips working their way through the media.  This is a great improvement from early December, when all the orchid's old roots seemed to be dying off. Best of all, the new roots all look very healthy!  The tips are a bright green, and the roots are smooth, with a solid white color, and no black markings or other signs of rot.

An up-potted Aliceara Matthias 'Glamour'

     I ended up going through with the repotting anyway, because I did not like how much the youngest pseudobulb would stick out from the smaller pot.  Hopefully this wasn't a mistake. Instead of doing a full repot, I up-potted the plant (I did not remove the old media from the root mass, or do anything to disturb the roots).

     To help mitigate the potential overpotting problem, I only filled the new pot 3/4 of the way.  Instead, I tried to take advantage of the wider circumference to angle the newest growth such that the roots coming out from it could reach into the media.  Additionally, I filled the bottom half of the pot with coarse bark pieces  and sprinkled the finer oncidium media on top of that.  The idea is to have the media be very loosely packed, so that it can get plenty of air circulation and still dry out quickly.