Why are my roots dying?

[Eyebabe]

I have grown the following very successfully in s/h:

Cattleya species and hybrids
Oncidium, Miltoniopsis, Miltonia, Phrag, Brassia, Maxillaria

I have also had limited success with phals but found it extremely difficult.
My theory is related to humidity and temperature issues. Your old roots will die when introduced into s/h. If there is not enough humidity with warm temperatures, new ones do not grow fast enough. Furthermore, the dying roots are a source of rot and infection. My experience is that phals are less "hardy" than other orchid species in fighting rot type infections. Also, do not underestimate the cooling effect s/h has even when using a seedling mat. The process of adapting to s/h imho is more difficult for phals than catts for example. Cattleyas in s/h are like fish in water.
When I have a plant adapting to s/h as it is growing new roots, I occasionally "unpot" the plant and cut off the rotting old roots. Currently, I am leaving less and less roots on a plant as I'm initiating a repot from bark to s/h.

I now pot phals in a mixture of New Zealand Sphag and perilite 50/50. Works especially well in holding humidity and moisture in a dry home. The perilite keeps the moist environment "airy" enough to prevent rot issues for me. I use clear slotted pots for airation and good root visualization.
I actually feel many of Phil's comments were helpful for me in finding what worked....especially the process of evaluating the environment that a species grows in nature, then trying to mimic it.

Finally, I think you have an infection (probably crown rot) that Physan does not kill. Given your plants were stressed with the new media adaptation (and I believe you said it was consecutive as they "hated the bark"), they just have succumbed.

The two phals I have in s/h did not take to the media or even grow one iota until they went in my greenhouse which has 70% average humidity. Temps range from 70F to 90F with no seedling mat. (I had them on one in the house tho where they were not doing well.) That told me volumes right there! In the warm and humid greenhouse, they now look like the weeds in my yard and thus the reason I am leaving them in the s/h. Can't resist to see how they continue to do!

Bottom line from me: If you can afford it, throw the plants out and get two new healthy ones.
Think about how you can provide the environment they need to thrive. Open your mind to the different ways you can create media to do this. Learn and enjoy!

[silken]

We usually have low humidity here on the prairies and I grow my phals in a mix of sphagnum, bark, perlite and sometimes a bit of charcoal. It is about 60% moss with even amounts of the other things to keep it open and airy. They do well and when available, they go into clear slotted pots so I can see what's going on. There is no way I can keep mine watered enough in just bark. Even in the moss mixture they get watered at least once a week if they are in the house and more in the greenhouse. As soon as they come home from the store or wherever I get them, they come out of the pot and much of the packed wet moss is removed to make a loose amount which I leave them in until they are done blooming. Then they are immediately re-potted. The bamboo skewer method really helps to avoid over-watering.

It sounds like these 2 sick ones have caused enough grief. I agree with Eyebabe that if you can afford to replace them, go get some nice new ones and chalk it up to "Orchid Growing 101" lessons

[scy]

I just came back from dinner only to see that the white mold had spread to the inside of the green gooey center. It really worked fast. I read Eyebabe's post and my husband did my dirty work and "disposed of the body" so I wouldn't have to endure anymore.

I am concerned about my other orchids that are potted up in s/h. I really thought my phal was happy, especially since I saw the new root growth and the branching. I don't think I can bare to watch this happen to my other orchids, so what can I do now? I don't want to cause more stress by moving things back and forth, but I don't want to believe that they are happy only to watch them die in a few days once it looks suspicious.

How do I go about figuring out which medium will work best for my environment? I have tried to work with sphag in the past, but I really need a dummy proof guide on how to pot it up with other things (ratios), how to storing extra so it doesn't go bad, how to properly water and proper maintenance so I don't have to go through this again. I have low humidity, low air flow, New Jersey temperatures and tend to be heavy handed when it comes to watering. I have an east facing bay window and a seedling mat.

Here's what I have:
1. den phal type with roots that aren't great but aren't dead but has lots of new roots around the new canes.
2. den miyakei
3. den victoria-reginae
4. miltoniopsis noid potted in small bark chips but dries up WAY too fast
5. cym in some small bark mix
6. cym insigne - repotted in s/h about 1-2 months ago. roots are still firm and white. should i move it back to bark?

How can I make sure that this doesn't happen to all of my orchids? What if I repot and they hate whatever new medium I provide? How can I transition them in?

[quiltergal]

I've not had much success with Phals in S/H. They are doing OK but not what I would call thriving. It is my belief in my conditions that the root zone stays too cool because of the evaporative cooling that occurs with S/H. Phals like a warm root zone. My Oncidiums on the other had are growing and blooming like weeds. They prefer cooler growing conditions so S/H works really well for them.

As for your pot. You do not have them in a large enough pot. Here is a picture of one of mine in a pot purchased from Ray. The pot is a good 10" tall, and probably 6" across. The reservoir only occupies the bottom inch of the pot. The Prime Agra does a good job of wicking the water from the reservoir up to about the middle of the pot. The closer you get to the top the drier things are. Yours are staying too wet, and too cool. Wet + cool = rot. Old roots rotting in S/H is part of the process. It's stressful for you the grower as well as the poor plant. It took this plant nearly 2 years to recover and adapt itself to S/H. At one point it was down to one leaf.

If you are committed to trying S/H do yourself a favor and buy one of Ray's starter kits. At least the pot/reservoir proportions will be right. I bet your Milt would love it.

[florafan]

Similar to quite a few members, I too had problem with phals in S/H. I had potted 4 of them into S/H when I first got them and all of them had all there roots rotted during the transition. I took them out of S/H because there were no roots left and did not want the rot to extend into the plant itself. I had to baby them with soaking in water with rooting hormone, putting them in a plastic tent to keep up the moisture content. When they finally started to grow roots I potted them up in a mixture of sphagnum moss, charcoal & perlite. They are doing much better. On the other hand, I have 7 paphs that are growing like wild fire in S/H/ They also had minor adjustment issues with some roots rotting off. I just took them out, cleaned off all the rotted ones and put them back into S/H and they didn't miss a beat. I even did this to one in flower and it did fine. I can only suggest that you monitor the other orchids you have in S/H closely and if they are doing well then leave them in that medium.

[silken]

Originally Posted by scy

How do I go about figuring out which medium will work best for my environment? I have tried to work with sphag in the past, but I really need a dummy proof guide on how to pot it up with other things (ratios), how to storing extra so it doesn't go bad, how to properly water and proper maintenance so I don't have to go through this again.

scy, this comment makes me ask what kind of sphag you are using. New Zealand sphagnum is very dry and just stored in a plastic bag or package. It should keep almost indefinitely unless it gets wet somehow. It is sterile as far as I know and I have never had anything happen to it in storage. Just soak bark chunks, perlite etc. and when the bark has soaked for a few hours, add some chopped pieces of sphag. As your are potting the plant squeeze out the sphag so it isn't dripping wet and stuff it into open gaps along with bark and other ingredients. When watering, let the media almost dry out but not totally for phals. I mean at the bottom of the pot, not just the top where it will dry first. My miltoniopsis thrive in moss too with just a bit of bark, perlite and charcoal added. They like to be evenly moist and never dry out.

[Eyebabe]

Originally Posted by scy

I just came back from dinner only to see that the white mold had spread to the inside of the green gooey center. It really worked fast. I read Eyebabe's post and my husband did my dirty work and "disposed of the body" so I wouldn't have to endure anymore.

I am concerned about my other orchids that are potted up in s/h. I really thought my phal was happy, especially since I saw the new root growth and the branching. I don't think I can bare to watch this happen to my other orchids, so what can I do now? I don't want to cause more stress by moving things back and forth, but I don't want to believe that they are happy only to watch them die in a few days once it looks suspicious.

How do I go about figuring out which medium will work best for my environment? I have tried to work with sphag in the past, but I really need a dummy proof guide on how to pot it up with other things (ratios), how to storing extra so it doesn't go bad, how to properly water and proper maintenance so I don't have to go through this again. I have low humidity, low air flow, New Jersey temperatures and tend to be heavy handed when it comes to watering. I have an east facing bay window and a seedling mat.

Here's what I have:
1. den phal type with roots that aren't great but aren't dead but has lots of new roots around the new canes.
2. den miyakei
3. den victoria-reginae
4. miltoniopsis noid potted in small bark chips but dries up WAY too fast
5. cym in some small bark mix
6. cym insigne - repotted in s/h about 1-2 months ago. roots are still firm and white. should i move it back to bark?

How can I make sure that this doesn't happen to all of my orchids? What if I repot and they hate whatever new medium I provide? How can I transition them in?

I had a dendrobium smilliae that did well in s/h until it was overcome with scale
My opinion is 1 through 4 should do fine in your s/h
I don't know about cymbidiums. They are more terrestrial. I'd probably go back to bark but will defer to those that grow them.

If your old roots are looking like they are done as the new ones are coming out, take your plant out of the pot and cut the old roots off. Remember when you repot any plant, you want them to root out into the whatever new media so don't leave a huge ball of roots on the orchid. (Learned that this past January from a grower and my repots go SOOOO much better now )

I live in Pennsylvania which is on par with Jersey...so use a media like mine or silken's for your phals and make sure the temp stays above 70F. In the fall, you can slowely expose them to some temps toward 60F to promote spiking for a few weeks.
Go to repotme.com just to see the different "stuff" you can mix into a pot for an orchid. Read orchid culture sheets on the AOS website. Go to Amazon.com and look up some general books on growing orchids as sometime you can pick up a used one for a few bucks.
Join you local orchid society...they will have a library of books you could also borrow and members who have killed hundreds of plants that you can pick their brains for information

[Ray]

I think Eyebabe has hit it on the head.

The plants have succumbed to a systemic infection, probably due to the combination of dying old roots and the cooler temperatures.

Even though we have domesticated them well, phals really are "hot growers" that favor 80's and 90's over 60's and 70's. Add to that the relatively frequent repotting and dipping in Physan (a topical disinfectant only), and my gut tells me you have just stressed them to the max, so they have succumbed to it all.

In contrast to others here, I have never lost a phal in S/H, but with my very humid greenhouse, evaporative cooling from the medium is a non-issue, and in winter, they are above the under-bench blast from my heater, so never get very cold.

[scy]

Thanks again for all of your input! I truly appreciate it!

quiltergal: I had not considered that the roots sitting a row or 2 above the reservoir would be too cool or too small. All this time I just thought as long as they weren't sitting in the reservoir, I'd be ok. I did buy Ray's PrimeAgra and every pot size he had, but I think I just put my orchids in the wrong size pots. I still tried to keep them in the smallest pot possible without it sitting in the reservoir. I have a den miyakei and cym insigne in Ray's pots. The other ones I thought were probably too big, and was afraid that the distance between the reservoir and the roots would be too great. I notice that the top evaporates rather quickly and was afraid that the roots would not get enough moisture. How high should the bottom of the roots be in relation to the top of the reservoir (drainage holes)? On a separate note, your phal looks so happy and I can't really see the bloom in the photo, but the colors are amazing. I would love to have s/h work for me, but I don't think I want to try it on my milt. My sister gave me the large phal and milt. I already lost one and don't want to risk losing the other.

florafan: The other orchids are not necessarily "doing well" nor are they dying. There is just no change really. The dens have only been there for about a month, so I'm thinking of changing them back to an organic medium. For the den phal type, I think I will pot it up into a larger s/h pot after reading other's posts about the roots being too moist and see how that goes.

silken: The sphag I'm using is what comes with the orchid when I buy it, and I don't mean the box store kind. When I originally purchased the phal sogo grape, it came potted up in sphag. It was yellow (even had some green in there) and looked quite lush. When I was talking about storage, I was not referring to storing sphag as I never actually purchased any. It was my bark mix that went bad. I bought a large bag of a Better Gro Bark Mix. When I realized that the sphag was not drying and my roots were rotting, I quickly went to a local Home Depot / Lowes and bought the bark mix. I looked through the plastic to see if it looked ok. I soaked it overnight in water and then potted my milt up in it. 3 months later, I noticed a foul odor and the bark looked very dark. I unpotted it and caught the first sign of decaying medium and dumped the whole thing out. I never bought any medium from a box store again. That's why I'm wondering what the proper way to store medium would be so I can make sure any excess I have would be long lasting. When I have tried to combine bark mix and sphag in the past, I have had the bark mix go completely bone dry but the sphag still remain wet for weeks. I had lots of drainage holes on the bottom and middle of the pot. Majority of the mix was bark with a little bit of sphag here and there. What do I do when that happens? Should I just forget the sphag and pot it all in a bark mix and water every day / every other day in the summer (that's how long it takes before the bark mix goes dry).

eyebabe: Oh no! I'm so sorry to hear about your den. I figure the cym would love it more than any other since it's cool growing and would appreciate the moistness. It does have sentimental value, so I don't mind repotting it back into a fine bark mix if that's better for it. Oh, how do you repot where the roots span out and not ball together? I do my best to try and tease the medium around the roots, but once it's in the pot, my fingers don't always reach. I do have to admit that sometimes it's a clump of roots here and there. I notice that my roots with the den phal type are not very firm but they're not mushy either. I just left them on and hoped for the best, but now that I know this, I will put them in a larger s/h from Ray and see how that goes. I think I have a lot of repotting to do in the future. Since you and Silken use sphag in yours, what do I do about the sphag not drying out for weeks? The bark and everything else will dry out quickly (about 7 days in the winter) but the sphag will easily stay wet for over 2 weeks. I am left wondering if I should leave it even though some roots are bone dry (not touching the sphag) while others near the sphag are still moist. This happened when I used only sphag (as that's how the orchids were originally potted when I received it) and when I repotted into a bark / sphag mix (with 20% sphag). When I watered it, I did it slowly until water ran through the bottom of the pot. In the winter, my temps are 45-50 F at night and 55-65 during the day (depending on if it's sunny). I have the seedling mat for my dens and phals. I keep that on throughout the whole season until the night temps are above 55.

Given my winter temps and everything I've said, is there anything that should stay in s/h? When I repot, how do I keep the smaller pieces from falling through the drainage holes on the bottom?

[quiltergal]

First I want to caution you about re-using old sphag from the original pot. Toss it. Typically sphag is only good for about 6-8 months and then needs to be replaced. It breaks down pretty quickly compared to other media.

I mix my own organic media. I have found that coconut husk chunks mixed with perlite and charcoal works very well for me. That said it retains more water than bark, so if you like to water a lot it may not work well for you. I only water every 7-10 days because I don't have time to water more often. So it works for me. The individual components of my mix are stored dry until I'm ready to use. I will usually mix up about a 5 gal container or less at a time. I never store the premixed stuff. The pre-mixed orchid media you can buy at the BB stores is wet. You really don't know how long it's been sitting around so it's my guess that the media was half decomposed before you even used it.

Once a plant gets comfortable in S/H you will find that some plants will grow roots right down into the reservoir and stay there with no ill effects. Normal pot size recommendations go out the window with S/H. As Ray has said you can overpot with no ill effects. That's actually a plus for plants like Dens and Catts that are sympodial and spread. You won't have to repot as often.

Your Phal that was in the small food container needed to be in a much taller pot. The drainage holes should be about an inch up from the bottom of the pot.