Anthurium repotting

Just for kicks, a few photos of a recent adventure in Anthurium repotting. The plant, named Anthurium 'Marie', has been in this pot for 2 or 3 years (since I bought it), and probably could have been repotted last year, but I procrastinated. The next two photos are what I started with. As you can see, it is looking a bit overgrown and under-potted.




In a fit of insanity, I thought I'd try to cut the pot away from the roots, without damaging the roots on the outside of the pot. That was slow going, and after struggling to pull back the first half of plastic on one side, I saw there was more root than media in the pot. That's about when I skipped to ripping the pot off the plant. Below is what I ended up with.



So I lost those stray roots outside the pot, but I'm not really convinced it will set the plant back any! Also, needless to say, I did not attempt to remove old media from the root ball. I then found a pot several sizes larger and reset the root ball, back-filling with a large size cattleya-type mixture of coconut husk chunks, charcoal, sponge rock, and diatomite. Results below.



It looks so happy now!

As a side note, DiatomiteUSA has shut down all sales through its website! ::GASP:: They have a note on their site that DiatomiteCanada.com will continue to serve our needs, but that of course will probably mean higher shipping. At least there's still a supplier.