What type of soil do I use to transfer my orchid from she...
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It depends on what your aims are, your environment and how experienced you are. The aim for any potting media is for the media to dry out so that the phals roots can get a wet/dry cycle. If they don’t dry out between waterings, the roots will become very susceptible to root rot. If, like me, you are in a cold, damp environment, using things like sphagnum moss just doesn’t dry out quickly enough, whereas bark is great. If you’re in a hot, dry climate, a bark/sphagnum mix works really well. The other thing to consider is that phal roots don’t cope very well with repots as they aren’t able to adapt very well and if the media is very different, what phals usually do is get rid of their current root system and build a new one that is designed for the media you’ve chosen so the aim becomes keeping the roots alive long enough for the new root system to kick in (this is where experience is helpful) - the best time to repot is when the plant is in its vegetative growth stage and producing new roots as this helps it cope so much better. To avoid this problem, it can be helpful to use a similar media to what the plant is already used to - so if the roots are adapted to bark already, using bark will help to limit the stress. The best pots to repot in are clear orchid pots with ventilation/drainage so you can monitor the roots and ventilation helps with the wet/dry cycle. Phals are epiphytes - they grow on trees - so you want a media that also creates pockets of air, like bark, sphagnum, leca, perlite or a mix.
@HelpmateGray if it’s got new buds and the plant is in good health, I would wait to repot until the blooms have fallen. If you repot while the plant has buds, you risk losing them. A repot is stressful and when orchids are stressed, they are prone to killing off their buds. After the plant has finished blooming, it moves into its vegetative phase in which it focuses on making leaves and roots. This is a really good time to repot as they tend to cope with the stress better. It’s always best to repot a new orchid after the blooms have fallen because the media is often old and broken down which can affect root health before too long and also most phals come planted in a sponge nursery plug and/or plastic cage around the inner roots. These cause no end of problems as the orchid matures, so it’s always best to remove them. When you repot, if the root system is able to fit back in the same pot, you can reuse the pot it’s in. I usually rinse mine out with plain freshly boiled water to sterilise it, leaving it to cool down before putting the orchid back in it. It sounds like yours is doing really well in bark, so I would go for a good quality orchid bark when you repot. Repotting thereafter should be done every 1-2 years depending on the quality of the media
