Some tips on rescuing phals
Hi,
I'm new here and in orchid growing but I would like to share some recent observations. Maybe they will help someone who, like me before, is struggling with growing phal orchids.
I have tried to grow phalaenopsis plants for almost a year now and most of my first plants ended up dead at the beginning, due to root rot. I started reading about it and not just following the nurseries' picture instructions for growing them. I learnt that the tap water in my region was extremely hard and salty (Mediterranean) so I bought ppm meter and started watering my plants with spring water, fertilizing with v. weak solution of orchid fertilizers, ensuring that they had enough light, appropriate temperature and air circulation as needed.
That stopped them from dying. A success! But...
...they would still not grow... I could not see any growth on them, no new roots, no leaves, no flower spikes... This has been the situation for last 6 months.
Now, I had 4 orchids with very little to no roots that started losing leaves and turgor and they were on their way to die. I tried planting them in moss, then keeping them above water to stimulate new roots, but they would only deteriorate further. I used rooting hormone, growth stimulators, all to no avail. One of them died eventually with stem rot so I constructed a grow-box for the remaining 3. I used a big plastic container, build up cardboard walls and used aluminum foil inside to enhance the light. I used 3 stripe of grow light and one 50W terrarium bulb for temperature control. My rescuees were pun in separate sphag-bag each in this set-up. After a month in these conditions, no further deterioration was observed, but no growth of new roots either.
I digged deep and far through internet trying to find out why my orchids would not grow but all I could find was tips regarding methods that I had already tried, and none of them worked for me. In the meantime, the healthy phals that I have in my collection would not grow either. They would flower for long time for me but after that, they would not present any sign of vegetative growth. I started to think that maybe there was something wrong with me and the way I looked after them. I know many people growing orchids putting less effort and interest and enjoying great success. What was going on here? I could not work it out.
Until one day I came across the Youtube video about the lady showering her orchids with hot shower. I thought that I rather win or lose and since I had no other idea of what this could be that was stopping my orchids from growing, I decided to go for it.
I first experimented with my rescue ones. I put them in the bath tube and started showering them with warm water (30ºC). After couple of minutes I put the temperature higher and showered them again, this time with the water between 40-45ºC, for about 5 minutes. when it was finished, I put them back in the grow-box but without their bags, to dry them out and to keep them warm. I made sure that no water stayed in the crown or between the leaves. When they already dried, I put them inside their sphag-bags, inside the grow-box. I didn't hope for much but didn't have any other resources to use either...
I inspected each bag every day and to my great surprise, on the third day I noticed new root tips coming out in two of the plants. Each day there were more tips and the roots started to grow pretty quickly. I noticed that even on the old roots that looked really sad, new root tips started to show up. After one week all three plants had grown new roots so I showered them again and after 2 weeks, two of them showed new leaves coming out. I thought that maybe it was a coincidence since these plants were treated with growth stimulators and maybe they eventually responded. I decided to try with another plant that had some roots and looked healthy, but wasn't growing and wasn't treated with anything previously.
After one week the same plant blessed me with 3 new root tips and a new leave.
I wonder if anyone had similar experience to mine. I leave in Mediterranean where the climate is mild during winter and becoming pretty hot in the summer. We have rains probably twice a year although the humidity stays in the range of 40-70% because of closeness to the sea. None of my friends who tried growing orchids here was successful.
I wonder if plants have some sort of "sixth sense" for the rain and would not invest their energy in growing if they cannot have a guarantee of resources afterwards?
Please, if someone came across the same struggle, share it here. I'm very curious.
Last edited by Cud.cudo; 12-28-2019 at 05:29 PM..
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