When do you give up when it's sick?

[Blondie]

Thank you for all of the wonderful advice. I seriously don't know where I'd be without this board.

I will cut and repot and give her another chance to LIVE and BLOOM and SURVIVE. I will learn patience. I will!!

I knew I should have brought my orchid book to the show to make sure I wasn't growing a "hard" one. Lesson learned.

Just one more thing--do you think my mystery spots on my phal is just from water or some such thing? Does water eat through a leaf?

[quiltergal]

Blondie, I suspect that the 70% alcohol dunk on the roots may be part of the problem. You may have damaged the root system. Right now I'd isolate it from the other plants and leave it be for awhile. Dens have a habit of pitching a fit when you change any little thing in their environment. You have changed a lot of things in the last few weeks. It will probably drop more leaves cause that's what they do when stressed. It may not recover from the alcohol dunk though.

[Blondie]

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

I looked up your Dendrobium. It looks like it has Dendrobium violaeceoflavens in it's bloodline.

This link might give a bit of insight on how to grow it...

IOSPE PHOTOS

Google Dendrobium violaeceoflavens for more info on what other people say about it's habitat or culture.

[(..._...)]

Blondie- I feel your pain... some people complain that their orchid isn't flowering. me? No! I just want the darn roots to live! phals are fine with me... but I really want to grow other types... and so far... I am unsucessfull ... but the more mistakes I make, the more I learn.. er.. well I am hopefully learning!!

Also, I find you are often better off to buy from an orchid grower than from an orchid show... growers HAVE to keep their plants if nobody buys them, which means they are usually healthy, but at orchid shows, they know that they will sell most of their plants, so if some are in an iffy condition... then they probably don't care!! Well thats just my opinion, I have purchased nice orchids from shows, and some that died after having them for only 3ish weeks.

Don't give up! good luck

[Blondie]

Yes, I used to go straight to orchid growers in Chicago. Alas, there is not a gold mine of orchiding in Iowa... heh. heh.

I do really well with phals. And I would LOVE a Sharry Baby...

I appreciate the more advice on dens. I assume I've done many different things that combined into a Perfect Storm 'o' Killing. I'm MUCH more confident about my phals and the Mclna or whatever that is is doing just fine. I'll just keep growing and learning every year. I already know so much more now than I did at the very beginning with that very first brassia...that I KILLED.

[(..._...)]

I have read somewhere that Sharry babys are monsters and are hard to kill. Thats the reason why I just bought one.

We'll se about that

[Pippin]

All my new plants get a quarantine treatment. They get sprayed with an insecticide, a mitecide and a fungicide, and as the world quarantine means, they get isolated for a month and a half (well, a little over 40 days).