Vanda dead roots

[Nico]

Hi! Today is a beautiful day here!

My only concern for the moment is my only blue Vanda. All the roots look dead, but the plant refuses to die. The leaves are wrinkled. I keep it in a plastic bag to have moisture, but is really hard to take care of it.

I don't now what to do... To cut off the dead roots? Some of them? Is a good idea to keep it in a bag or better to put it in pot?

Many questions, but it is (was) a gorgeous flower.

I can't take a picture with the roots now.

Vanda in the good days...

[Erce]

youn can pot it up using epiweb - i know some from denmark had it done that way and it worked

[kavanaru]

or you can also pot in a clay pot with large chunks of charcoal... many in my orchids society grow them this way, and it also work very good for them! I also support the EpiWeb method, wich I have also seen to work very well here too.

[Blueszz]

Hi Nico,
this summer I got 3 very dehydrated Vandecous plants from a gardencenter, only a few good roots left. I kept them bare root this summer and 2 out of three started new roots very fast. In fact one of them is in spike now. The third one didn't do so well...

When I had to bring them indoors and turn the heating on I was afraid that the roots would suffer too much from the dry air. I used wire to fixate them in the vases (only roots in the vase).

The third one still didn't do well. The other put out a lot a of root growht (the old roots branched). The third one didn't and still looks dehydrated.

Recently I started to water that third one more often. The 2 "good" ones get their vase filled with water on sunny days or at least twice a week. The other days I only spray the roots and inside the vase to keep the humidity arounds the roots up. The third one gets water in the vase every day and when I started to do that it's showing leaf growth and looks less stressed.

I noticed that the roots from the "bad" one dried much faster than the ones from the "good" ones.

Do you know what went wrong with the roots on yours? Too dry and died? Too wet and suffered from rot/fungus?

Putting it in a basket with large chunks of charcoal seems a good idea to me. I will keep the roots longer moist. I certainly would cut off dead roots, but don't cut off roots that still turn green when you water it.
I too cut the dead roots when I first got my plants as they would develop fungus very fast. I don't think bagging a Vanda is a good idea. They love plenty of air flow.

I notice growth slowed down this month in mine. It's not a good season to revive Vanda's in Europe now. Colder temps indoors and short days make good growth impossible.
For my ailing one I only can hope it hangs on until late February/beginning of March, the time of the year I expect them to put out plenty of new leafs and roots.

Still wondering why the roots on yours died... any idea?

Nicole
(I know my post isn't a real answer, just sharing my experience and tossing in some thoughts...)

[Erce]

a grower from denmark, potted up a vanda in epiweb - for her it went so well - it grows and the epiweb helps the airflow and dont get braken down like organic bark mix

[Nico]

Thanks a lot for the advices! Any experiences with Vanda helps me, don't worry Blueszz

I don't understand this plant and is difficult to take care of it (especially when you have a small apartment and over 30 plants ). But I love its big and blue-purple flowers.

I don't know the reason for the dead roots... They have no fungus or rot. Maybe in the summer is too hot and dry.

But this orchid is determined to live and deserves to try one more time to rescue it.

I can't find epiweb here, unfortunately...

[Blueszz]

To give you a clue, I had mine bare root last summer after I purchased them and I dunked them up to three times a day when temps were around 30 C. Even just before night... With low humidity and the window they were bone dry in the morning.

Nicole