My Cymbidium needs help.

[Singingirl96]

Hello. In the last year and a half I have acquired several orchids (I caught the orchid bug), and although all of my other orchids are in fantastic shape, I have one Cymbidium orchid that is in bad shape.

Last year, when I bought it, it looked amazing. Then it got some kind of white lice, or something of that sort living in the medium. I treated it with neem oil, and it seemed to go away.

Once it warmed up (60's), I put it outside. My backyard faces east, and it gets full sun in the morning until about 1pm. Im in Maryland, so it got pretty hot in the high of the summer.

It got lots of rain, and when it got dry I watered it.

Well, here are the pictures of what it looked like last year and what it looks like now. I'm thinking it got too much sun.

The question is, what should I do now? It is starting to get cold (40's at night) and I may have to bring it inside when it gets colder. Should I repot it? If so, should I remove the dried out back bulbs? I peeked in the soil and the roots look ok to me.

Oh, and is one of the new growths starting a spike?

Any help is much appreciated. Please let me know what I can do to rescue it.

[Ray]

First of all, stop watering the plant. Water the medium only. Water standing in the leaf axils can become an ideal breeding ground for bacterial and fungi.

Generally speaking, cymbidiums like it bright but cool. The heat of midday summer sun can be very stressful on the plant. It can tolerate the 40's with no problem, but on hot days, it should be well-watered and shady.

The "lice" you saw were likely psocids, which live in decomposing organic media. That, itself, should have tipped you off to repot into fresh medium. Also, it's really not a good idea to use oils on the roots or medium. Neem oil has a limited toxicity to insects, but it's primary killing mode is coating and subsequent suffocation. By applying oils to the roots and medium, you probably did not get an effective coating on all of the critters, but may have contributed to the plants' degradation by clogging the velamen with insoluble oil.

Personally, I would unpot that plant, separate the old- from live growth, and pot it up into a pot more commensurate to the size of the remaining growths.

[Singingirl96]

I did repot it after I treated it with neem oil. And the water you see is rain water. It was raining when I took the picture.
I'll be potting down, not up, right?