Our local orchid nursery has classes in orchid culture and repotting. Students are asked to bring a plant to be used in class. Recently, one of the plants was Brassada Orange Delight 'Starbek' HCC/AOS I am sorry to not be able to show you a picture of the plant as it arrived.

At one time this had been a very nice plant with multiple leads and lots of flowers. Now there were dead pseudobulbs and gaps where there once was growth. Trust me, it looked bad. Some people would have put it right in the garbage. But this was a class, so it was removed from the pot, inspected and cleaned.

The result was not promising. The plant had been both over watered and under watered. There were no living roots at all. A large portion of the plant got trimmed off and thrown away. When we were done trimming and grooming, the four remaining sections of three pseudobulbs. The plant had focused all its remaining energy in these leads. All the velamen (the outer coating of the root) was gone so the roots were trimmed so that only a little remained, and that only to hold the plant in the pot.

Run the mouse over the pictures to see the individual pieces and the result after I potted them. In class, though, the instructor reccommended that the student not try to grow them. She had only a couple of orchids and little experience. It would be a couple of years before this plant would bloom again. So she gave them to me to see what I could do with them.