Vanda beginner question

[early]

Originally Posted by Steve83

I think your biggest hurdles are humidity and airflow. Plants with mounts/exposed roots do substantially better when those two paramaters are met.

Light and temperature are probably number 3 and 4 for your situation.

tx Steve

[theorchidapartment]

I have dry indoor conditions and followed this advice, somewhat: I have my vandas in extremely well draining and slightly aerated translucent plastic pots with wine corks as media. Instead of sphagnum moss, I've topped my pots with smaller pieces of cork so there aren't as many gaping holes.

The cork in the pot is very loose around the roots and the media itself doesn't retain much moisture, but the setup keeps the air around the roots humid. I drench them when they've dried out, which is usually daily, and fertilize one or two times a week. (Probably could stand to increase feeding.)

I've had a number of buds blast and am working on figuring out the cause, but so far I don't see signs of dehydration, there's new root growth, and the existing roots seem to be holding up well.

EDIT: I should add that I've only had this setup for a few months so take this advice with a grain of salt! So far this is what has worked best for me.

[Orchidtinkerer]

Motes have some good advice, I think I started adding more magnesium because of an article by them but like with every advice you have to make it work for you.

Since we still don't know the size of discussed Vanda I will just post this to illustrate I believe smaller plants need less energy than 2 meter tall Vanda's..

I have dug out one of my Vanda's that has been on 10ppm N for the past year, next year it will go up to 20 ppm N. I am still new to Vanda's so I'm not claiming to have any good answers but I know what I have done wrong in the past. If you look closely on the picture you will see the older roots are burnt... That was done when I was using 50ppm N.