Help! Can I save these abused phalaenopsis?

[estación seca]

Your second set of photos shows only wrinkling from not enough water. When was that one last repotted?

[Missusk]

This is all very helpful information ! Thank you so much. I've sprayed the one orchid with a soap/water mixture, let it sit for 10 minutes, then rinsed and dried it off. It's sitting near a fan so hopefully it will dry out. I'll do the same again in a few days.

Should I spray all the other orchids with this as well to be safe? I wiped their leaves with a tissue and I didn't see any reddish residue on the tissue.

Thanks again!

[Roberta]

I think that it would be wise to spray everything. Soapy water gets a number of pests... basically it drowns any invertebrate that breathes though pores in its body. Of course, it only gets the ones that it contacts, and doesn't touch eggs. So to knock down an infestation of any sort, repeat the process in a week, and then again the week after that. I wouldn't worry about drying the leaves, they'll dry quickly anyway.

[Missusk]

Originally Posted by estación seca

Your second set of photos shows only wrinkling from not enough water. When was that one last repotted?

I was given that orchid in October of 2020. I believe it might have been repotted then? The person who gave it to me said that he got a Keiki off of it which he was going to grow. He said that the orchid has fragrant yellow flowers.

It has been shamefully neglected, I have to admit.

---------- Post added at 05:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:23 PM ----------

Originally Posted by Roberta

I think that it would be wise to spray everything. Soapy water gets a number of pests... basically it drowns any invertebrate that breathes though pores in its body. Of course, it only gets the ones that it contacts, and doesn't touch eggs. So to knock down an infestation of any sort, repeat the process in a week, and then again the week after that. I wouldn't worry about drying the leaves, they'll dry quickly anyway.

Okay! I will do that then! There are only 8 of them so it shouldn't be too bad. Thanks! I will post their pics at some point for advice.

[Missusk]

Okay - for the first phalaenopsis with barely any roots and chewed up leaves, I set up an old terrarium I found in our garage to see if I can get some roots to develop. I need to clean the leaves and I was going to order some Kelpmax to help with the roots. But this is the set-up I was thinking of using,

I have the terrarium sitting on a seedling heat mat. It's 72 degrees in the room right now so maybe that's too warm to use the mat?

Sorry that I can't get the photos to align properly!

[Roberta]

I don't think you need the heat mat this time of year... it'll just have the effect of drying out the medium too fast. As for the orientation of the photos... that's a "feature" of the Orchid Board software. (A bug, or "document it and call it a feature") The solution is to run the photos through any photo editor, do a "save as" (the same name is fine)... that resets the "orientation" metadata.

[SouthPark]

Soap spray is indeed awesome against spidermites and other little animals that attack orchids. Having adequate air-flow is certainly beneficial to help dry the leaves etc. One past experience I had with catasetum - which have thin leaves - was ------ even with natural air-flow, unwanted micro-organism activity occurred right after applying natra soap spray. Leaves near the base began getting dark and soft - breaking down. It was affecting not just a few of the catasetum - but the whole lot of them.

Fortunately - an application of a phosporous acid treatment - yates anti-rot - stopped whatever it was in their tracks. And the leaves then went on their way to continue to grow to big leaves. Remnants of the attack remained (which was absolutely ok) ------ appearing as light-coloured dried up patches and/or hole.

For phals ------ may need to blow out any water that piles up in the crown region somewhere.

[Missusk]

Update – I was diligently spraying the orchids with soap and water, did the kelpmax soak for the rootless orchids, set them up with bamboo skewers and covered them loosely with unsealed plastic bags. Then I had to go away for a week and asked my husband to water the orchids once while I was gone. When I got back the bamboo skewers were totally covered in mold. I removed the skewers and on one of the orchids I saw visible signs of mold on one of its aerial roots. I sprinkled some cinnamon and then rinsed it off. The other orchids look ok BUT one of the orchids has a musty smell. However, I don’t see any signs of mold.

Should I assume that the musty smelling orchid has mold and repot? I just repotted it so the medium it’s in now is pretty new. It's the same orchid whose photos I posted at the beginning of the thread - the one with the spider mite damage.

Is it common for bamboo skewers to mold? I have a feeling that the source of the mold was a molding piece of fruit that was nearby that my husband didn’t think to throw away.

Thanks again for any help!

[Roberta]

Wood skewers can grow mold. I don't think that it will hurt anything. As for the roots, they get the occasional black spot anyway. Again, no harm. Actually, rather than skewers to decide when to water, my suggestion is to use weight... Water well, weigh the plant on a postal or kitchen scale. Weigh again each day. When the rate of weight loss starts to level off (meaning there isn't much water to evaporate) it's time to water again. So it never gets totally dry, just "humid air" when it's ready for watering again.

[Missusk]

Update!

So all the orchids have survived. In fact almost all have produced new leaves.

Thought I'd share some photos.

Here is the orchid that I thought had the least chance of surviving. It's producing a new leaf!

The photo on the very right is what it looked like when I got it.

More in the next post.