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Repotting helis

I have a little one in a 3in pot and I want to get it in a bigger pot with a cypress based mulch. First off should I just not mess with it and second should I just take the plant soil and all and just put it in the middle of the new mix?
 
Yes, that should work. You still want to be careful as the pitchers and roots are very fragile. I usually lose some pitchers to physical damage and/or older pitchers die quicker than than normally would without repotting.

Good luck.
 
This is not at all meant as advice but I wanted to post my experience as I just repotted and probably should've done a little research here on the forums first. :D
My H. heterodoxa had been in the same container since I got it two or three years ago and the crown had since died out and divided into about five smaller points on the edges of the pot. For a while it had many more and I probably should've repotted then, but I was intimidated. It initially was much smaller than the pot and co-planted with live sphagnum, but as it got bigger it overwhelmed the moss, which mostly died off. The mix underneath also turned out to be some sort of tree fiber/LFS blend and seemed on the verge of rot to me, so, contrary to typical advice, I set to untangling the roots from the old mix for fear of root diseases. I probably broke off some smaller tertiary roots but for the most part, I think I did a good job of it. The mix was soft and very decayed so it came loose easily; I washed the root ball in cool water and almost everything came off right there. In all I got five separate pieces of rhizome - one without roots, two joined at the root (or maybe a fractured rhizome) and two others - and so far a week later I've only seen three of the oldest pitchers wilt (out of about 20 total, I guess.) I put it in a mostly inorganic mix with lots of chunky stuff like lava rock, perlite and ceramic chips. I used sand and a little peat for fill and threw some strands of LFS in near the middle depths of the pot because it's really tall and I wanted something to act as a wick - I went from a 2.5" round starter pot to an 8" round, 10" deep nursery pot so I figure my still mostly immature divisions might need some assistance getting at the water table.
Any comments would be appreciated, but the deed is already done so all I can do is give 'em Superthrive and happy thoughts. Hopefully this will give some ideas to other people just starting out with Helis as well.
~Joe
 
Joe,

I think you'll be fine. I think a chunky mix is good thing, and I often use live LFS near the roots of a repotted heli to help the roots transition to a new mix. I try to use a deep container to encourage long roots, but I know others have had success in shallow pots.
 
So don't transfer the old into the new or get rid of it down to the roots?
 
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