Do I need to worry about floppy leaves?

[Niggefrau]

Hi everyone,

I recently bought 2 Orchids (NoId Phals, from a garden center ot specializing in orchids) that are behaving in a way I do not understand, maybe someone can explain me what the problem might be (or if there even is any...).
After two weeks of being with me both orchids started to have their leaves "flop" no idea how to decribe this better (see pic), they were more upright before. The leaves are rigid to the touch and not wrinkled at all, just flop. They are also relatively thin from top to bottom. Other than that, the bark only medium still looks ok to me, it dries out in about a week, and the roots (as far as I can see, dont really want to take it out of its pot just now since in full bloom) look fine to me as well (go through green silver cycles, see pic on the verge of going silver). I dont see any sign of pests either. I am a relative newbie to orchid-care but I have kept Orchids for more than 10 years on the same windowsill and they always did resonably well "despite my (non-)care". I watered them with a shot glass full of tap water in irregular intervalls (up to 3 weeks in between!), never fertilized, never repotted... They were in fact the only plants that survived my "care" and some of them were with me for the whole 10 years (until lockdowns induced my absence for 9 months...). They bloomed quite regularly... but admittedly never grew much What I want to say by this is two things. 1.) I dont think the location/lighting of the plants is the problem (since it wasn't before) and 2.) This time around I want to do it properly... and have started reading up already (thank god for this place!) but could find no information on why this floppy leaf problem occurs, all explanation I could find referred to seriously dehydrated plants. And (at least to me) they do not seem dehydrated? and if so why would they be? I obviously dont "water" them the old way any more, but submerge their pots in water (50:50 tap + VE) for around 10 min once the the roots are silvery and visible condensation in the pot has ceased, which was around once a week for now. No fertilizer yet since I still wait for my conductometer to be shipped to me...

Hence, do I need to worry, take them out of their pot to inspect the roots further or just wait and see? What else could I try? Sorry for the long (con-)text.

Thanks

[estación seca]

The plant looks well. I suspect the floppiness is because your home relative humidity is probably lower than what the had in the greenhouse.

[Dimples]

Plants grown in greenhouses are provided with optimal conditions and grow their morphology to match those conditions. Once the plants are in our homes, the conditions change and usually quite drastically.

I typically notice some slight flopping of existing leaves on phals shortly after they come home with me (not always but often enough that it is a trend) and have chalked it up to my growing area being quite warm (regularly 24-30C/75-84F) with high light but lower humidity than a production greenhouse would have. I also have a fan pointed at them to prevent heat buildup, so the older leaves that grew in a very humid greenhouse can't keep up with the water loss in my home. New leaves grow in stiff and plump so I don't worry about it unless the dehydration/flopping is extreme.

In your case, I would suspect you may be waiting too long between watering. Phals don't need or want to dry out completely before being watered again. Waiting for them to begin drying out is fine, but so long as the growing medium is airy, they can stay damp at all times. Phals don't have a lot of internal water storage and they're from areas that get regular/daily rain or are very humid/misty/damp all the time.

Give it a nice long soak, a few hours is fine, and then water more frequently. The floppy leaves may or may not stiffen up but new ones should grow in firm.

[Niggefrau]

Great to hear! And many thanks for anwering my long question! My home certainly is also a lot less humid, and probably also colder (22d-18n).