Renanthera 'Kalsom' in questionable health, ack.

[rosemadder]

I bought my first orchids recently, and one of them appears to be suffering.

I acquired this vanda 2 months ago. It spent one month in the seller's very coarse bark, getting lightly watered once a week.

When I pulled it out of the bark, I found most of the roots very brown. I think I must have overwatered it a bit during that first month, or something. Not sure. I put it in S/H for the next month.

I just checked on it, and found the lower roots near disintegrating. One portion is weirdly still green, but most of the roots are brown and the area of the stem where they meet is black.

The upper roots, meanwhile, that the seller had trimmed to about 3", have actually started sprouting new growing tips! I didn't know they could do that, I thought a root that loses its growing tip was kaput permanently? Seems I was wrong.

I can't fit the newer roots into my S/H pots, and the lower roots look like they're trying to die off, so I just attached the whole thing to a trellis. I'll wrap it in mosses and treat it as mounted, for now-- my other vanda really seems to be enjoying that arrangement. When/if a new crop of roots starts growing, I'll likely try the S/H again.

The base of the lowermost leaf worries me. It's turning brown and yellow, and the leaf appears to be on its way out. Is rot from the bottom roots moving upwards to threaten the whole plant, or is only that leaf affected?

Should I cut off the bottom roots entirely, and trim it back to the fresh white roots up higher, or just leave it be??

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

It has a very strong chance of recovery because of the amount of good roots it has.

I grow them like my Vandas, except they are exclusively grown intermediate - warm. They are in coarse bark in a clear plastic pot that is not bigger than the root mass. I grow them under indirect bright light, and they love it!

I water far more often than once a week right now, btw. I just wait until the media dries out completely before watering again.

[rosemadder]

I hope so! Those upper roots do seem quite determined.

If it's possible to water the coarse bark more than once a week, I wonder what I did wrong? The humidity here is usually 50%+, but I'm not sure if that would slow down the drying enough to make that big a difference.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

Maybe the key is the temperature. I wait until the media dries out completely and the warmer it is, the easier it is to dry out faster.

Also, try a much smaller pot. If you need to, you can use packing peanuts to fill out spaces that the roots do not fill in.