12 rescued orchids need help!

[krazykat1980]

I'm new to orchids and my boyfriend brought me home 12 of them that his bosses wife had gotten bored with and put outside to trash. 7 of them (phals) came home on friday, and the other 5 came home today after being left out all weekend in poor conditions (discussed in previous post), but don't seem to have suffered from the cold.

Unfortunately, most of them seem to have some major issues. A couple of the phals had wrinkled limp leaves when they came home, which is getting worse. The worst of those has a keiki on it and the keiki and mother plant now have dark, wrinkled droopy leaves. Dry black splotches on the bottom of one of the plants. Definitely bad roots on some of them so I'll have to do some surgery. Through the pot on the one with the keiki I can see black dots on the roots so maybe surgery and a repot will do the trick, since the keiki doesn't quite have enough roots to remove it yet. One of the phals has only dry hollow roots underneath but a few side roots... should I cut all the dry roots off so that the side roots can touch the potting mix?

Now for the other 5... someone in my other thread suggested that they might be Cymbidiums, one of them did have a label stake but I can't quite read what it says (I'll include a picture of the stake, maybe someone can figure it out... all I can read is the first word that looks like winter lol). One is completely dry and cut back, but I'm not calling that one a goner until I pull it and see if it has any live roots left, although I doubt it. Most of them have white dots all over the leaves, and the lady that owned them said they'd had mites, but I don't think mites lay eggs that large do they? A wet paper towel does remove the spots with a little bit of scrubbing (boyfriends words... I have a sprained ankle so had him check that for me since they are sitting outside). Also several of them have black spots on the pbulbs, and the middle of some of the leaves is a brown strip, not to mention the black splotches on some of the leaves.

Am including pictures of all problems mentioned... should I remove and pot the keiki so the mother is less stressed (keiki has 1 root about an inch long and a couple that are about half that), or try to nurse it back to health the way it is? I need some general surgery tips... what kind of things should I remove and what iffy things can be left? What about those black spots at the bottom of the phal and on the pbulbs of the other? What are those white spots and are they going to infect the phals if I bring them inside where the phals are?

And my biggest question... my local nursery closed for the winter 2 days ago... ace hardware (only other option) only had miracle gro or moss... which I've read on here the miracle gro is horrible, and I know the moss would be a bad idea because I'd probably overwater. At the moment most of the phals are in what looks like woodchips, 2 are in moss. Since the 2 options at ace didn't seem good to me, they also had a bag of redi-gro patio bark... I grabbed it, figuring if you guys vetoed it I could return it. So my question is... will that work? It's fairly small pieces of dark brown bark... really light material.... unfortunately it doesn't say what kind of tree it comes from... anyone ever used this stuff for their orchids before?

[silken]

Ok, first off, the white spots are possibly mealy bugs and will spread if not kept away from the others. I've not had an infestation myself, so others may say they aren't. But that's my assessment. They can easily be wiped off or treated with a Q-tip with rubbing alcohol. But then you will have to keep at it while eggs continue to hatch. They like to hide in cracks and I think even the potting media. You can use an insecticide spray too.

Those do look like Cymbidiums and the tag appears to say Winter alright but I can't make out the other two words. There are a number of hybrids starting with Winter, so if you can take a guess at the other words, I might be able to find a match in OrchidWiz. The one does look dead from the photo. The other will need to be re-potted, but only when new growths are sending out roots. Then you can cut a bunch of those old back bulbs off.

The Phals should likely all be removed from their pots and roots inspected. Anything mushy or dry and hollow is dead and should be cut off. Anything firm, even if it might feel dry has potential. If they are silver, the roots are alive but dry. Green is alive and wet. Some will have new green growing tips which is real good.

If there appears to be mold or fungus I would give them a quick dunk in some kind of fungicide or spritz them with brown Listerine if you have nothing else.

In a pinch you might use the bark but it's hard to say what is in it. There are lots of places on line to order potting media. Repotme.com, Quarter Acre Orchids, Tindara come to mind.

I pot my cyms in medium bark but there are other options too. I like to pot my Phals in a mix of medium bark and sphagnum moss. Use well aerated pots that are just big enough for the root ball. If some are really lacking in roots once all the dead stuff is removed, you might want to use a rooting hormone like KLN or some kelp (seaweed) extract to soak the roots in for a 1/2 hour to stimulate root growth.

Hope that helps.

there is a Cymbidium called Winter Bride. Your tag looks like that to me (maybe)

[krazykat1980]

Boyfriend turned label over and it was written there too.... the last word is balkis... so it's a Cymbidium Balkis.... so what's the middle word now lol... winter ___ balkis... I love google...

[silken]

There is a Cymbidium named Balkis with no winter or anything. Maybe the 'winter... ' is a note the owner made regarding its care??

[krazykat1980]

I'm wondering if the winter ___ is the variety... like one of the phals had a label "destiny".... and one of the phal pots had a label that said phal and a number... which I would assume might be the specific color/variety like you get with other types of flowers

[silken]

Usually the first word or two are the hybrid name and anything in quote marks after it is the cultivar or clonal name. So this one looks like the hybrid name is winter something and maybe it is crossed with the hybrid Balkis. Why not ask the boss's wife? She might remember.

[krazykat1980]

it does look like (looking at both sides of the label) there is an x at the end of the second word.... which does make the first 2 words look a lot like winter bride.....

[silken]

Then it could be the hybrid Winter Bride which is mostly white crossed with the hybrid Balkis which varies from pale yellowish green to a whitish pink. That looks like a possibility from what I can make out on the tag.

[krazykat1980]

Mealybugs will commonly leave a white residue on plant’s leaves that resemble cotton. You will find this residue mostly on the stems and leaves. This residue is either the egg sacs of the mealybugs or the pests themselves.

Mealybugs look like small, flat oval white spots on plant leaves. They are also fuzzy or powdery looking.

This isn't fuzzy, cotton-like or powdery..... so not mealy bugs.... I may need to make a separate thread for this one.... to me the specks look almost like paint... or splatters of some kind.... especially with the way the spots aren't all the same size and the ones on the top of the leaf focus on the middle, but all spread out on the back of the leaf.... going to have boyfriend ask bosses wife tomorrow if she sprayed them to get rid of the mites she said they had.... boyfriend doesn't think it's splatters cause there isn't anything on the pot. Also I just read that some plants (like jade plants and don't know what else) can excrete ecess salts through their leaves that can leave spots.... don't know if orchids do that though.

99% of these spots are fairly flat, and some of them require a decent amount of pressure to wipe (scrub really) off with water

[silken]

It could be scale then. It just looked so white and plentiful! Round and almost flat and need scraping off could well be scale. If so, do not get this close to other plants. Scale is nasty and much harder to eradicate than mealy bugs! Best to wipe or scrape all the visible ones off if that is what you have. If it is, they too get into crevices and you may need a systemic to eradicate them completely. If you have other plants besides these new orchids I would keep them separate till you figure it out. Also check the other newly acquired orchids for this.

They kind of look too white for scale, but there are different strains and I would not rule it out at this point.