Brassia culture: Brassia Edvah Loo, how I lost a specimen plant

I used to have an enormous specimen plant of Brassia Edvah Loo ‘Nishida”.   When it was in full bloom, it was something to behold.  The flowers were more than 30 centimeters tall, and the plant produced dozens of them in six large inflorescences.   Sadly, I lost my plant.  How?  I decided to divide it in several smaller pieces.  Up to that point my experience with Brassia was that they rarely got sick, grew fast and were problem free.   But this Brassia showed me there are exceptions to everything.

Because the lead growths were growing over the edge of the pot, I divided the plant in pieces with two to three pseudobulbs and a lead growth.   I gave some pieces away, others I potted some I mounted in fern poles.  To my horror every single piece died.  They didn’t all die at the same time.  What happened was that they stopped growing vigorously.   Some rotted away, others produced smaller and smaller pseudobulbs until they died.  To this day I cannot figure out what happened.  By the way I sterilize with fire every tool I use to cut the stems of the orchids, so it probably wasn’t a pathogen that was accidentally introduced to the plant during the process of dividing it.  

After that depressing experience, I no longer divide specimen plants that way.  What I do is I take a piece from the specimen plant and pot it separately So I have a spare in case it gets sick.   My experience with specimen plants is that as they grow larger, they can naturally divide themselves into pieces as the older parts of the stem die off.   In some cases, like my experience with Paphiopedilum, the stem can divide in separate pieces and yet the roots are joined in a hard root ball so that they cannot be separated without doing horrendous damage to the roots.  In those cases, I take out the old decayed potting material from the root mass and fill the spaces with fresh material.  

Growing an orchid specimen plant takes patience, dedication and consistent care.  It is a huge investment of time and effort.   Damaging the roots of specimen plants should be avoided.  It can severely set back the plant or even kill it.    On a closing note, don't give in to people begging for pieces!!  Send them to a vendor.