Brassavola Dropping Leaves and Roots Turning Dark

[Shadeflower]

orchids benefit from tiny diluted amounts of fertilizer with every watering.

It is fractions to what other plants need but the most important factor in getting blooms to improve.

Long term watering weekly with a shower head will flush all nutrients away and vigor will decline.

[LoriM]

Leafmite, I was thinking about going with the basket pot so I wouldn't have to worry about rotting wood again. I'll try that with the lava rock.

Brassavola Stars, Thank you for the suggestion. I will use a fungicide. Over the summer after it had rained for a few days I noticed what looked like mold growing on the wood. I wiped it off with a paper towel. After reading other posts on the forum, I was wondering what I saw was a fungus.

Thanks everyone for your suggestions! I'm feeling hopeful that I can keep this orchid alive.

[BrassavolaStars]

I am mostly a beginner so take it with a grain of salt but, I’ve had some luck with thiomyl and copper for preventing or stopping rots (root and leaves) on non Dendrobium orchids I thought were at risk.

I also have aluminum tris (alliete) as a black rot preventative but I’m never sure if it works or not.

I think good cultural conditions in the first place usually means you won’t ever need these things but I like to keep them around to hedge my bets.

In terms of fertilizer, I usually go with something colloquially called “weakly weekly”. Essentially, use 1/5th-ish strength fertilizer every time you water. If you have outdoor tap water that is above 55f, you can buy a hose mixer and set it to the right quantity.

I am also very lazy so I often run out of mix and don’t refill it for a long time. My plants are “ok” but would probably do better if I was more diligent with the fertilizer. I also have kelpmax and calmag which are helpful as my water is pretty soft but I also forget to use them.

Right now my biggest focus is ridding my greenhouse of boisduval scale (which is next to impossible).

[Roberta]

Just for grins, here's my plant. It was in a clay pot with medium (probably long gone), I dropped that into a basket, it mostly rooted on the outside of the pot, then on the outside of the basket, now some roots are going back into the space between the pot and basket. I think that basket with lava rock will work great.