Small leafed phalaenopsis growing 2 main spikes

[cythaenopsis]

This is an oddity for me...

I have a phalaenopsis that had a troubled life after its second blooming. I had managed to over water it (despite being conscious of this possible mistake) and caused massive root rot. I tried to save it but it looked like it was pretty much on its way to death. But some how, some way, the plant was determined to live while hanging onto just one small leaf. It took a year, but it finally began to show some healthy root generation. Then a leaf sprouted. Then another leaf. The older leaf fell off and then it started one more leaf that started then stalled. Why?

Because two spikes emanated from the base. Honestly, I can't understand why it's putting itself through this. You'd think two spikes would require a lot of energy to nourish, but look at those leaves--they're not very big.




Is this phal kind of "out of its mind"? I'm trying to restrain myself from watering more than once every 5 days, but I do give it a heavy mist saturation every other day or so with fertilized water. Should I just let it be and hope for the best? Or is there some intervention recommended? Should I nip off the smaller spike to help give it a reasonable chance of blooming anything this cycle?

[Gage]

It has spiked because of temperature drops. I wouldn't cut any spikes because it will probably just put out another. If it has a couple of leaves and a couple of roots to support those leaves, it should be just fine. Misting with fert water every other day sounds like a bit too much. Misting phals in general puts them a bit at risk for fungus and crown rot. Although they benefit from regular fertilizing, they can go a very long time without, so I wouldn't fertilize a recently stressed plant too much. Maybe once a week at the very most, but better only every couple of weeks. Fertilizer mostly accommodates growth. But if you want to stimulate growth you can give it seaweed, something comparable, or a so called "bloom booster" (the high phosphorus can stimulate root growth). It does look over potted quite a bit. You want to put it in the smallest pot possible to accommodate the roots, and even add styrofoam to the bottom and/or middle of the pot to eliminate some of the unnecessary media that would hold excess water. This "under" potting allows the media to dry more quickly. All of this and more is covered in this thread:
http://www.orchidboard.com/community/beginner-discussion/44792-phal-abuse-ends-here.html

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[Gage]

It also sounds like you are like me, a compulsive over-waterer. What might help you is when you are concerned about a plant, rather than compulsively giving it water right away, study it very closely instead. Check the media's dampness, check the turgidity of the bottom leaves and then the newest leaf, watch the roots for signs of growth or rot. I'm sure you are already looking at some or all of these things, but if you make these your focus you will have a good idea of when it actually is needing water.

[cythaenopsis]

^ Thank you for your advice (once again), Gage.

I will definitely cut back on the fertilizer then. The plant was in a smaller pot previously, but it looked like it was needing some room. Two rather thick roots that shot out hit the ceramic pot wall and then stopped growing, one of them eventually shriveling up and died off. I figured it needed more room. I did line the bottom of the bigger pot with a chunk of styrofoam, so it actually has less potting moss than it appears.

That does remind me, I need to get more chopped bark. On another plant, I have the pot mostly filled with bark and then a layer of moss on top to help trap in the moisture. It seems to be working well. This was with a keiki rescue. It was dangling off of a mother plant and not looking all that great (two leaves were drying up). The plant belonged to a relative who welcomed me to detach the keiki and trying growing it. The remaining leaves that had a light olive faded coloration ended up staying on and getting more life back into them. More leaves sprouted and then a fanfare of roots shot forth. I'm just mentioning this as the potting mix I described seems to be working well for the plant. The roots inside the pot are a bright healthy green.


^ Here you can see one of the previously suffering leaves is still alive, with a dead section near the tip. The smallish cluster of leaves in the center is all new growth. Strangely, the first few that started haven't grown much (this is going on several months).


While the top has a good cluster of thin spiny roots, underneath there are much thicker and lush green roots running around amidst the bark pieces.


It's hard to make it out, but there is an 80% bark to 20% sphagnum moss layer on top. The clear pot seems to be helping with the growth of algae/moss that increases humidity inside the enclosure.

[Gage]

Hey if it's working for you then great! The root that hit the clay pot may have just had an issue with the clay. Maybe the clay was drawing moisture from the root? I have large Phals with many roots encircling the inside of its plastic pot, so they don't really need room. The roots mainly just need water and air.

[cythaenopsis]

^ Yeah, sometimes it's hard to tell what's going on with an orchid, why it behaves one way or another. It's very plausible that the root had an issue with the clay material or the plant itself was uncomfortable in some way.

Do you tend to go for plastic pots over clay ones? I'd heard clay was good for helping to absorb moisture, to aid drying out the potting mix between watering. But... now that I've got one clear pot and see the plant doing very well with it, I'm half tempted to use clear plastic for all of my pots going forward. And for aesthetics, one could always put it inside a more decorative pot, right? This makes for easy watering and status checking.