RYERSON EXPANSIBLE ORCHID FOLDER Page D. 
SHIFTING SEEDLINGS FROM FLASK TO COMMUNITY POTS 
WARNING! DO NOT OPEN FLASK NOR LOOSEN STOPPER UNTIL READY TO START PLANTING! 
PREPARATIONS. (To be completed several hours, or the day before planting. ) 
Sift "Ryerson's Potting Mixture" over screen of $- inch hardware cloth, saving 
screenings for "topping" the pots. Fill 3-inch pots slightly more than half full 
of fairly fine crock. Add about an inch layer of coarser mixture to each. Top 
with screenings until level is about ginch from pot rim. Thorough soaking with 
fine spray of water will settle mixture to about # inch from rim. Mixture is bone 
dry and may require several soakings. Check drainage. If water stands in pot 
more than a minute, drainage hole is blocked. 
EQUIPMENT NEEDED: Bowl. Cool water. Tweezers. Potting stick, such as pointed 
manicure stick, swab stick, or round type of toothpick. 
l. Open flask and run a little cool water into it to wash loose seedlings from 
surface of agar. These will slide right out into bowl. With hooked wire or curved 
grapefruit knife gently loosen agar around more deeply rooted seedlings, easing 
them out into bowl, careful not to injure roots. The small chunks of agar that 
come out with these larger seedlings will tend to settle, while most seedlings 
float. Sort seedlings for size as you plant, using larger first. 
2. Plant in rows, working toward yourself. With potting stick in left hand, make 
tiny hole for seedling you are picking up with tweezers held in right hand. Ease 
roots into hole, taking care not to push or bruise them; tamp mixture gently over 
roots; proceed to make next hole. Try to maintain proper planting level. If 
leaves are partly buried, seedling will "damp-off." If tops of roots are left 
humped up above mixture, seedling will tend to "climb out of pot." 
Seedlings with the longest roots will require greatest care, but will reward you 
by throwing first blooms if properly planted. When two long roots are sprawled 
apart in a wide inverted V, ease them together between prongs of tweezers and slide 
down into adequately large hole. If you plant only one root and let the other 
stick out at right angles, the seedling will lean over at an awkward angle, and 
you are apt to injure that protruding root in planting the next seedling. If the 
seedling has many roots, the top few being very short, these latter may be left 
exposed and will start growing all over the top of the pot almost immediately. 
Phalaenopsis seedlings are especially happy when some roots are left exposed, on 
top of mixture. 
Planting the smallest seedlings will go the fastest, for you can then put away the 
potting stick, or use it merely to hold a seedling in place while you lift the 
tweezers away from it. Tiny holes can be made with tweezers, while seedling is 
being planted. Be sure end of root is protected by end of tweezers, Save time 
and worry by throwing away the few that have no roots at all! 
3. Should some of the potting need to be postponed, use tea strainer to lift re- 
maining seedlings out onto clean, damp cloth. Fold ends in and store in cool but 
not cold place overnight. Return to cool water and proceed as above. 
CARE OF COMMUNITY POT SEEDLINGS 
Place pots, touching each other, in solid block in greenhouse or Orchidarium. 
Take great care with watering. The more misty and fog-like the spray, the better, 
to avoid: l. drenching mixture and causing damp-off, or, 2. washing smallest 
seedlings up out of mixture. If mold grows on osmunda and pots, making them slimy, 
they are too wet. If mixture becomes powder dry, and seedlings begin to shrivel, 
they are too dry. Try to strike a happy medium, and GOOD LUCK! 
