Dealing with rescued phalaenopsis

[greenochre]

Originally Posted by estación seca

Are you treating the roots with anything when you repot? I water a newly-repotted plant with Kelpak solution, but I wouldn't use anything else.

No, I don't. Before I got Kelpak (very recently) I just washed the roots with water before potting them into the new medium.

With two most recent rescues (mini phal and the orchid I don't know the name of) I gave a soak for a couple of hours in Kelpak solution as Ray suggests, then watered with Kelpak. But the not-Phal orchid is doing fine, so obviously something else is wrong, something which is important for Phals in particular

[estación seca]

My guess is they would do better with higher temperatures. Winter isn't the easiest time to rescue Phals.

[greenochre]

Originally Posted by estación seca

My guess is they would do better with higher temperatures. Winter isn't the easiest time to rescue Phals.

I added a heated mat recently, a thermometer shows it's 24-25C on their shelf. And I did it before I got two latest rescues, but still mini Phal lost roots which looked good when I got it very quickly

[Dimples]

I’ve had total collapse of what looked like a healthy root system, on a rescued phal. I was shocked at how good the roots all looked when I repotted it, but they all died very quickly after I repotted.

I use extremely good quality bark and have the method that works for my conditions down to a near science (21 of 22 phals are in some stage of blooming/spike growth right now), so I assumed something was wrong with them but it wasn’t visible until it was too late.

---------- Post added at 02:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:17 PM ----------

How many times has this happened to you?

[greenochre]

Originally Posted by Dimples

I’ve had total collapse of what looked like a healthy root system, on a rescued phal. I was shocked at how good the roots all looked when I repotted it, but they all died very quickly after I repotted.

I use extremely good quality bark and have the method that works for my conditions down to a near science (21 of 22 phals are in some stage of blooming/spike growth right now), so I assumed something was wrong with them but it wasn’t visible until it was too late.

---------- Post added at 02:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 02:17 PM ----------

How many times has this happened to you?

All the time, with 6 or seven Phals. But all of them were rescued, ie not in good shape

---------- Post added at 02:12 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:37 AM ----------

Looks like I found a part of the answer - a couple of my previous rescues that were doing fine for a while (started growing new roots and leaves) at some point started having purple spots on their leaves - I thought it was due to too much light, so I moved them to a shadier part of the shelf, but those purple spots expanded, and then root rot developed.

Today I was decluttering my kitchen, found a forgotten package of Epsom salt and remembered I heard something about it being beneficial for orchids, so I googled and realized that purple coloring looked exactly like Mg deficiency. Also explains why moving to a shadier area didn't help it.

I thought I didn't have to worry about Ca or Mg because I typically use tap water, and tap water in Barcelona is pretty hard. But, apparently, high levels of Ca in the water can block Mg intake. Magnesium deficiency also could be a possible cause of my calatheas' leaves constantly having browning edges.

My other plants doesn't have any signs of Mg issues, but maybe my water is fine for plants with a healthy root system, and the Mg issue happens only with weak or sensitive plants.

Anyway it seems in the worst case scenario adding Epsom salt to the water from time to time will just not work, so I'm going to try