Time to give up? (Paph roth)

[Susie11]

I have just spent an hour repotting all of my paphs for about the third or fourth time in three months!! I had no idea that it was a bad idea. I have a maudiae with a bad root system like your roth and I have tried everything to encourage more roots. She has been stable for ages- nice healthy firm green leaves- but the roots are hard but they have no new tips left. My problem was sphag. It burned all of the tips off and no more have grown. I applied seaweed extract and potted her up in a bark, charcoal,perlite mix (as I did with all of the others that were still in stagnat moss) -sphag! I hope that they all make it....

One thing I wonder about is why can't it grow new roots? It has bumps were they look as if they might emerge from so why isn't hasn't it produced more roots after all of this time?

[camille1585]

There's nothing wrong with repotting if the mix is not well suited. But when a plant is repotted it goes through an adjustment period before concentrating on growing. Switching to a new medium to which the roots are not tailored to is an added stress. With my Phals, I usually see no activity for 2-3 weeks after repotting, and then there's an explosion of root growth. By repotting often you are constantly setting them back in the adjustment phase, so it's no surprise that they aren't growing much. But I agree that it's tough to know what to do when orchids aren't doing very well....

[Magnus A]

Sorry!

I did not meen to be rude!

Just to be as clear as possibly and give an advice. There are unfortunate no way to adapt every answear on a board like OP to individuals and as a non native english speaking person it even harder to formulate answears in a way that they can´t be missinterpret.


I can just say that I also have problem plants! but with 200+ plants in my appartment, and over 8 year growing, I no longer have the time to be to concerned about them :-(

[The Mutant]

Originally Posted by Magnus A

Sorry!

I did not meen to be rude!

Just to be as clear as possibly and give an advice. There are unfortunate no way to adapt every answear on a board like OP to individuals and as a non native english speaking person it even harder to formulate answears in a way that they can´t be missinterpret.


I can just say that I also have problem plants! but with 200+ plants in my appartment, and over 8 year growing, I no longer have the time to be to concerned about them :-(

You don't need to apologize, because as I wrote; how are you supposed to know that I'm extra sensitive at the moment? This was just a wake up call for me that I'm having one of my "moments" again and should remove myself until I work properly again. This is not the first time it happens and it won't be the last, I'm just sorry that you got caught up in it.

I look forward to talk to you nice people again later.

[Rowangreen]

Sounds like a good tactic Magnus: get so many you can't be concerned about individuals!

Still, Mutant, I've said it before. At least you've had the sense to stick to a couple of genuses! I just looked at the alliance divisions on the board, and out of 16 I have representatives of 9 and I've only been growing for a year...

I'm finding it very hard to not keep peeping at my paph venestum's roots, since on the surface it's doing nothing. The one time I looked I think the newest root had grown down, darkened and was showing signs of hairs at the point I stopped digging. I keep wondering if I'm mistaken and it was actually an older root I was looking at... very hard not to check!

I have quite a few orchids have done nothing for long periods. My noid oncidium (thought to be Pagan Lovesong) took 8 months to start a new growth, and that's not yet dividing into leaves 2 months on. My Max variablis hasn't done a thing (except lose one leaf) since I got it at London Orchid Show (is that 3 months ago now? Or more?). I just found it's got a growth started this morning! Which is great, especially since I've aquired 5 more Max species since I got it and was wondering if I could actually grow them!

If you are interested the plants that have been fastest growing for me are some phals, Ludisia, Dendrobiums (I have a nobile and one that's thought to be a kingianum or hybrid, I've only had the nobile a few weeks though!), a brassidium (Spider Star 'Toscanna'), maybe my mystery lycaste... Probably the fastest growing of all is my Cycnodes Wine Delight, which I think I may have to repot again as it's climbing out (I only got it as a cp with the project Soph cernua!). Of course that needs a winter dormancy which is going to be interesting and potentially frustrating! The Sediria japonica I got the same time is also putting out lots of roots, too early to tell if it's just a surge though I think. My Max ten and Zygo triste also seem to be steady growers so far.