How to Repot Orchids

Repot your orchids every two years, or when you notice the potting medium - the "soil" in which they're planted - starting to break into smaller pieces.

Things You'll Need

• Garden Shears
• Orchid Fertilizers
• Orchid Pots
• Orchids
• Plant Light
• Scissors

Instructions

1. Choose a new pot that is only slightly bigger than the old. You can use a special orchid pot, which has holes on the sides of the pot to let the roots grow out, or a regular clay or plastic pot.

2. Hold the top of the plant carefully while you turn the pot over and knock the plant out.

3. Shake as much of the old potting material from the roots as you can.

4. Snip off any dead roots with scissors. These will look withered, not thick and white-tipped.

5. Position the roots in the new pot, and hold onto the plant while you fill around the roots with the new growing medium. (Fir bark is a common growing medium for orchids; the pieces of bark may look big, but they give the orchid roots the air they need.)

6. Water well, until the water runs from the bottom of the pot, and keep the plant out of bright light for a couple of days.

Tips & Warnings

• Some orchids grow upward, with new leaves coming out of the top of the stem, while others grow outward, with new leaves beginning their growth from the sides of the stem before growing up into new stems. When you repot, position the upward grower (called monpodial) in the middle of the new pot, and put the sideways grower (called sympodial) with its oldest part against one side of the pot.