Phalaneopsis - new flowers wilting

[camille1585]

Humidity trays actually don't do a whole lot for raising humidity levels, unless the plants are in an enclosed space (with fans running of course). Certainly not as effective as a humidifier.
I have trays under some of my plants on shelves, and the humidity meter shows only a 5-7% increase with the trays. Hybrid Phals are quite tolerant of low humidity though.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Can you post a pic? It might make diagnosing far easier.

[RosieC]

Originally Posted by King_of_orchid_growing:)

Can you post a pic? It might make diagnosing far easier.

It wouldn't let BlueDevil without at least 5 posts. But should be able to now

[Paddle_grl]

Honestly, I'd say it's probably from the temp change recently. I have a few persnickety phal's that will get bud blast in the summer if we turn the AC on for even a few hours. It's always a bummer. Others don't seem to care. If there's one thing I've learned about orchids, is that they tend to do what they want to do, when they want to do it! They sound pretty healthy to me.

[camille1585]

Today I noticed quite a bit of random blasting on some of the orchids on my windowsill. By the glass it's always cooler when it's cold, so I'm wondering if the recent temperature swings aren't the cause. We had cold weather, then 4 days of 16/17C, and now it's suddenly back down to -5 to -8C at night. That could be an issue with BlueDevil as well

[bluedevil]

OK, some pics:


Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting
Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting
Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting
Image - TinyPic - Free Image Hosting, Photo Sharing & Video Hosting

1st, 2nd and 3rd are of the phal that is blooming where you can see flower towards the window is doing well, but other two are closing. The one doing well is the 2nd that opened, other two are 1st and 3rd to open. 1st to open lasted ok for about a week, when it begun closing, and the 3rd one lasted only a day before starting to close. Also, 2 buds fell off before any of the flowers opened.

Then you can see some roots of that phal.

Last pic is of other phal, with only buds and no openings yet. It has a broken leaf, but it was like that when I bought her and since the leaf is still green I didn't want to mess with it.

P.S.
I still can't put those 4 links, so I removed the h-t-t-p header

[camille1585]

Have a look here to post photos: http://www.orchidboard.com/community...ng-photos.html

If you just want to post a web link, then click on the 'insert link' icon above the box where you type a post, then paste your link in there.

[ALToronto]

You likely poisoned them with the wrong food coloring. There are different kinds, and only one is compatible with plants.

[bluedevil]

That thought crossed my mind, of course: but the thing is, I used the coloring for the whole year for that plant, and it bloomed normally the whole last spring and summer, and well into autumn, and then it survived autumn and winter with that same water/coloring, and nothing happened to it.
I belive it is possible, but I also think the plant would have some other problems during the whole year of watering it with that "poison", not just now.

[RosieC]

Not sure, but often toxins can 'build up'. You are not meant to water venus fly traps with tap water, but you can get away with it once or twice, it only starts to affect them if done consistently over a period of time.

I would not rule out the colouring, however a temperature change is probably more likely.