Stuartiana 'sogo' help.

[Singingirl96]

Hi I bought this Stuartiana a little over a year ago from a local greenhouse, and it was in great shape over 80 flowers and buds.

As soon as I got i home it deflated. The leaves wrinkled, many of the buds didn't open... you get the idea. I eventually cut the stem off so the plant could recover.

After I cut the stem off, it perked up a little but it continued to have some wrinkled leaves and some leaves were still droopy.

2 new leaves grew, but it has never been a healthy plant since.

This past February, It flowered. It gave me about 20 flowers. But the new leaves got wrinkled and drooped again.

Just today I cut the stem off. It is looking very sad. it has TONS of roots, no bugs, plenty of light (east window and t5 lights), humidity is low at about 30-40%. It is in bark, I repoted it last year. It dries out slightly between waterings...

I just don't know what else to do. I contacted the greenhouse owner and all he can tell me is that this is a species plant and they can be really finicky.

I should note that I took it outside for the purposes of taking the pictures.

Any suggestions?

[cb977]

Yours looks better than mine!

Mine's mounted and blooms every year but the leaves are kind of droopy and not the most beautiful.

I choose to ignore it

[trdyl]

How often do you water and when you water do you give it a good drenching?

[Singingirl96]

I water it about once a week when the medium is on the dry side. I let it soak for about 15 mins or so. Water at room temperature (i measure with a thermometer).

[Izzie]

Is it near a heat/ac vent? Probably not, but thought I'd ask just in case. (this was my first big orchid mistake)

[dounoharm]

looks like a lack of humidity problem to me....maybe set a bit of moss over the top of the plant and keep that moist...gl

[Izzie]

I've had a stuartiana for almost a month now in low humidity and it's doing fine- it's on a gravel tray with many other plants though. :/

[cneos]

It takes LOTS of energy to produce spikes with 80+ flowers. First, I'd confirm that the roots are in good shape - this means un-/re-potting; I'd also be concerned that your plant has only one (maybe two) pairs of leaves.

[SFC]

maybe try semi hydro, I have a phal that looked really sad, leaves were always wrinkly and soft, even though it had really great roots and even though I treated it exactly the same as my other phals which were doing really well.
so I put it in semi hydro about 2 months ago and it is looking great, new roots and 2 new leaves. some of the old leaves even firmed back up.

I have found lots of info here at the OB on the subject of semi hydro growing

good luck!

Sarah

[Singingirl96]

Thank you all. I'll look into semi-hydro and increasing the humidity. I'll repot it as well. We'll see if it helps