Tricky watering - Dendrobium

[Stefan Petersen]

Dear orchid friends.

I need your help with suggestions to watering this lovely dendrobium which is inherited from my dear grandmother, and which you guys previously have helped me out with

Several of the bulbs are growing horizontally, and recently one of the bulbs started growing downwards. That has become a problem when I try to water it, I always water it from below by putting it in a bucket with water.

But if I do that, the down-growing bulb and the leaves would be underwater. I know that Phalenopsis must not get water in between the leaves and you need to suck the water up if water should fall down between the leaves of a Phalenopsis. Is that also the case with a dendrobium?

It is not possible to water it from above. The plant grows like a tight bush. I have attached a photo of it from above, so you can see it’s difficult to water it from above.

How would you guys water this dear plant?

Would you guys sacrifice that one bulb and still water from underneath?

[Roberta]

No worries about watering it from above. Phalaenopsis have a little "pocket" (the crown) where water can catch. (Nature solves the problem, they grow sideways or upside down and gravity prevents water from collecting in that spot. We mess with Nature's plan by putting them in pots vertically.) Dendrobiums don't have that problem, their growth habit is quite different. I would take it to the sink, turn on the water, and let it flow through the pot. The roots that are pointing upwards will then get water too. In fact, some pot-bound Dendrobiums (among others) will send roots upward (bird's nest roots) which let them collect water and nutrients washing down from the forest canopy. So while you could move it to a larger pot, I would not bother. It looks quite happy. Just give it a good bath from above. When you fertilize, again just put it in the sink and pour it through.

[Fairorchids]

Du kan sagtens dykke hele planten. Som Roberta siger, der er ingen 'lommer' hvor vand kan samles og fremkalde problemer i en Dendrobium.

Du kan ogsaa dykke Phalaenopsis og Vanda, men for dem skal du haelde vandet fra foer du saetter planten tilbage paa dens normale plads.

[Stefan Petersen]

Thank you very much for your reply. It's really sweet of you both!
Roberta you mentioned the roots,
1.Do you know why the roots pointing upwards (and almost all roots pointing downwards in the pot) are brown and black and hard instead of white? The black and brown roots are rock hard.
Is it normal and healthy for them to be brown/black? I thought they were dead roots?

2.The dendobium is so dense that I fear the water won't run out if I water from above in the sink. It seems like the water—if watered from above—would hit a wall of bulbs and roots and won't pass through. I'm worried the plant might rot if the water can't fully pass through. Could that happen?

I used to water it from above and I actually thought that I was the one who made the root turn brown/black because the water got stuck in the top. So I was worried that I somehow ruined the plant and petrified the roots by watering from above.

3.Since a dendrobium tolerates watering from above, I would like to ask if you mist your dendrobium?
And can I mist with demineralized water since we have very hard water (calcium in it)? t in
Or is there not enough nutrients in demineralized water?


@Fairorchids: Thanks for trying to translate into my language. That's nice of you. There are some errors in the translation. When you write "submerge the plant/dykke the plant," do you mean that I can definitely water the plant from below in a tub of water and don’t worry about the bulb growing downwards getting water?

[Ray]

Addressing item 3 - why mist the plant?

If the goal is raising the humidity, misting the plant doesn’t; all it does is wet the leaves, which does little for the plant.

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[gjanick2]

I surely am not an 'orchid expert' by a longshot, but I may add a few words from my experience. I am an American living in Chaiyaphum Thailand. Right now we are experiencing the hottest weather on record. +40C (+100F) every day with absolutely no rain in the last three months. Our natural water supply (a lake/resoivoir) has totally dried up so we (about 2,000 Thai residents/homes) have no running water. Our community is resourceful and we have water from farmers fields trucked in every day.

Anyway, I have about 40 different dendrobium plants all hanging. We do have very high humidity which is probably saving all our plants.

Yet all my plants (especially the dendrobiums) are doing just fine with a daily dousing of water. I put an aluminum wok/pan underneath the individual plant to collect and reuse the water again for the plants.

Dendrobiums will find their own way to use the water by any watering method.

I agree-- your plant looks very healthy and you shouldn't worry if each stem or bulb is getting enough water.