Transplanting Pink lady-slipper (Cypripedium acaule) - William Cullina

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You can also remove plants bare-root as long as you have damp burlap to cover them with until them are replanted. This smaller individual has one welldeveloped bud visible in the center of the image and a moderately sized root system. Blackened roots are stained by humic acids in the soil but still healthy. The white roots are younger. Lady-slipper roots will continue to live and grow longer over the course of about 5 years. However, if the growing tip is damaged on a particular root, it cannot grow another. In this image, the healthy white root began growing this spring (after flowering) as did the slightly more stained one at the left. Notice that this second root has lost its tip and can grow no longer. The roots are all important to lady-slippers as they not only take up water and nutrients (and perhaps carbohydrates from the fungus) but they also act as the primary foodstorage organ for the plant during dormancy. If roots are cut or damaged during
transplant, they will stop growing and be vulnerable to infection. The loss of more than a few can spell disaster for the plant, as it has lost a good share of its food reserves and will likely wither away over the next year or two. This is a common occurrence in gardens, where a rescued or wild-collected plant will come up the first year, come back smaller the next, and fail to return the third. C. acaule’s roots inhabit what is called the F horizon in the soil. This is the zone or layer just underneath the unrotted leaves and other debris in this image. A few roots may pass through the narrow H horizon and into the black and gray A horizon. The H horizon is not topsoil, but rather a porous blend of partially decomposed organic materials. When replanting the orchid, it is essential that you relocate the roots in this layer as they will often rot if buried in the heavier horizons beneath.
Page 1 and 2: Transplanting Pink lady-slippers (C
Page 3 and 4: Dendrolycopodium dendroideum Chimap
Page 5: Though in an emergency, you can suc
Page 9 and 10: Set the plant into this shallow hol
Page 11 and 12: The finished plant with unrotted le

Transplanting Pink lady-slipper (Cypripedium acaule) - William Cullina

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