Phal losing leaves

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

LECA holds more water.

[james mickelso]

The extra humidity from the LECA is good. The air movement around the round shape is good too. I've had lots of phals that lost all their old leaves leaving one. They sit there pouting and then when they are ready they produce new leaves slowly at first and then more quickly as they gain strength. Leave it alone as long as those roots stay healthy.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

I guess I should be more clear on what I intended to recommend.

Either go all bark or go all LECA/semi-hydroponics.

Since you have less LECA, I recommended what I thought was the easiest route; which was to remove the LECA.

If you want to go the SH route and use all LECA, that's fine too. People have succeeded with Phals growing them like this too.

[mnguyen110]

Im not trying to disagree...but reading on this forum, i assumed 10 out 10 member mix different media with bark. An example would a mix from repotme.com

[RosieC]

People often mix medium, however the air flow quality of lecca only really comes when it is used on it's own, or with just a top covering.

Lecca on it's own has pretty large gaps between the beads, because they are circular they hold away from each other with big gaps in between. This means that their water holding capability (they do hold more than you would think) is combined with lots of air flow and that is really good for the roots.

However when lecca is combined with another medium that can fill all the gaps, especially when used in a small quantity compared to the bark mid all around, there are not the same gaps around them as those gaps are filled by the other medium. Then the water holding properties of the lecca are what you get and it holds things quite moist.

Having said all that, when transitioning from moss a more moist bark mix has more chance. I agree with the comment above that phals don't like switching from moss to bark, I've had trouble trying it. Roots grow tailored to their environment and those tailored to moss don't adjust well to the drier environment of bark. You need new roots to grow which are tailored to bark. I find switching from moss to pure lecca works best for me, provided you keep it quite most, possibly even S/H where it has a reservoir of water at the bottom. Pure lecca means you can keep it moist like the roots are more used to in moss, while also giving good air flow. However you have to either do S/H or water often for that to work.

[mnguyen110]

That's for all the info everybody!

Do you think its a good idea to try S/H with this one?

[james mickelso]

I disagree on the roots behaving differently in one media over the other. They don't grow one way in moss and when switched to say bark, behave differently. The only thing that differs is air flow and water retention in different media. When I get phals planted in (yuk) sphagnum moss and bring it home and repot it into bark, the roots have the same texture and water absorbing properties as before. When I repot catts from bark into lava cinder or broken clay pottery the roots don't change. What changes is air flow and water retention in the mix. The roots are the same. When they are newly formed they have a hard almost water repellent outer veneer whether arial or buried in the media. As they age the velamen becomes more water absorbent and more spongy. This happens in moss, bark, cinder, LECA, or in no media at all. Give it a try. Buy two phals/catts/oncids and pot one in say moss and the other in bark. Or moss and LECA. Or in any mix you want. Grow them for 6 months and then take them out of their respective pots. Look at the roots and decide. What is the difference? None. I've potted hundreds of orchids of every make and model. Seldom do I see any difference in roots. I see a difference between roots watered less often and roots with lots of or very little airflow. But not between media. I agree that some media might not work too well together. A mixed bark with lots of fines and LECA. The fines plug up the voids within the LECA. LECA by itself is a very good media. Cinder for me is about the same. It comes back to the difference between "arial" roots vs "roots under media". They are the same root. The arial root hasn't expanded the spongy velamen covering much because the plant would lose moisture through it whereas the root velamen under the media has become much more open and absorbent because the net loss of moisture is negligible. I tried to take pics of both stages of root development on a phal but the cam batt ran out too quickly. I have some phals that need repotting this weekend so I will do a little tutorial on the difference in roots exposed to the dryness outside the media and those growing inside the media. Learning which media has which properties and how to water each is the most important cultural aspect when growing orchids. I'm just guessing but would wager that 80% of orchids killed are because of bad watering practices. Basically watering too much. You can grow massdies in coarse bark (gasps from the audience) and vandas in fine media. Learning to water properly determines which lives and which dies. Airflow is key. Remember that most orchids grow as epiphytes on trees and rocks. They get water when it rains and then dry quickly when the rain stops and the wind blows constantly which dries them further. Phals grow in humid wet conditions during the wet season and get much less rain or moisture during the dry. But they grow with their roots exposed to the air. We put them in media and when their roots stay wet......they smother/drown and die. Anyway here are some pics of an arial root that has become more water retentive now that it is maturing. Before this, say three months ago, this root wouldn't absorb any moisture at all no matter how long I held it under water. But now it absorbs water within seconds. I'll post a pic of this root in a couple months. There will be an even bigger difference.

[shaelyn]

james, I'm not disagreeing with you at all - I don't know enough about the specifics to do so...but I'm just going to point out that, even if it's the fault of the grower as opposed to the way the plant functions...if repotting an orchid from moss into a bark/moss mix is generally more successful than straight into bark, it may be worthwhile for someone wanting to repot with bark to do. moss is cheap, too...it may be easier to do that than figure out what to change and how to change it when their current watering and feeding routine isn't keeping the orchid alive.

mnguyen I've never tried the S/H route, but as I've realized with most mediums I've tried, a lot of "which medium is best" depends upon you. do you want to mess with the orchids a lot, or a little? do instincts push you to water them often, or do you want to set it up in a window and not worry about it for a while? find out how involved the S/H system is, and then figure out if that's the route you want to take.

[james mickelso]

Hi Shaelyn, no disagreement here either. The point I try to make is not to get too hung up in which media but learn how to correctly water which media you choose. Moss is actually a good choice for phals and other soft rooted orchids. The key is to water much less than seems logical. There is a big difference between the way phals are planted in moss from a grower and how it should be used by us to repot. The reason moss comes to us so packed around the roots of the orchid is because the grower packed the moss into the pot and dropped the young juvenal phal on top of it. Then the phal grows roots down into that packed moss and gets big. What most of us never see is how the phals are grown. High heat, lots of humidity, and lots of water along with a very brisk constant breeze which is the key to why the phals the grower grows don't get root rot. Because of the constant air movement the whole rootball dries out at an even rate. Actually more than a breeze but less than a wind. And the lights are kept on for , I think, 18 hrs a day. The point here is that how we plan a watering schedule depends on which media we choose. Moss dries out slowly especially inside toward the center of the pot. Folks look at the top of the pot and think the orchid needs watering. With bark, there is faster drying throughout the whole pot. With hydroton/LECA the drying is more even still. Small bark vs larger bark. Small bark dries slowly. Larger bark dries more uniformly. So knowing the characteristics of what you use is more important than sticking to an arbitrary schedule. That is what my rant was aimed at. I read and hear folks ask "how often should I water?" or "I water once a week or twice a week because I heard that is best." What I try to impart here is the why something works. Not what we use but how we use it and how it reacts to what and how. Again I feel that most people especially those new to growing orchids water too much. Last week I didn't water most of my orchids due to work commitments. The larger ones went nearly two weeks without water. I barely had time to water the smaller pots and mounts. And those got watered about every 5th day. They are fine and some are in the process of pushing flower buds. My humidity has been around 35% to 65% and temps around 65*f day and 60*f nights. Orchids are far hardier than most people give them credit for being. So no argument. Just trying to make a point for the newbees here. A few times this didn't get watered for two weeks. And the C. intermedias here didn't get watered for two weeks but flowered all the same.

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

I agree with James for the most part on many of the points made.

I'm not surprised some Masdevallias can be grown in bark quite easily - if you know what you're doing, of course. I have seen it done before.

However, I will point to how some orchids will be far more successfully and easily grown with certain particular kind(s) of media compared to other kind(s) of media due to very specific properties/conditions that each media has compared to the other that would sometimes be difficult or, (often times), troublesome to replicate. The "troublesome" part comes into play when you factor in each individual person's lifestyle and growing environment in addition to the orchid growing techniques.

For example:

Try growing Constantia cipoensis in a non-fibrous type of media. I think it would be far more difficult to succeed with this species with the use of a non-fibrous type of media compared to a media that is fibrous. That's because a species like Constantia cipoensis naturally grows on a genus of shrubs called Vellozia. Vellozia has a fibrous stem, hence why a fibrous media would work far better than if it were mounted on any kind of wood (soft or hard). So, the best choices here in this case would be media such as coconut fiber mounts, Osmunda fiber mounts, or tree fern fiber mounts.

Another example would be:

I believe it is highly impractical to grow something like Pescatorea cerina mounted for most people, (the media in this example would be a wood mount with sphagnum moss). It is not impossible to do so, but for many growers who do not have automated watering systems or proper shadehouses to house the orchid in, it is just not a feasible thing to do in the average home in many parts of a country like the US; especially in an arid state such as Arizona. The amount of times the orchid needs to be watered during the orchid's natural wet season cycle will bog a busy person down so much that they would be forced to make a decision between keeping their orchid, growing the orchid in a far more practical media for the type of orchid and the type of growing environment the grower has to deal with, or continue doing whatever else is more important in their lives and just give the mounted Pescatorea cerina away or let it die on the mount. Then add to that the factor of what kind of a wet mess a mounted orchid might make on the floor after a good, thorough watering. Furthermore, the inconvenience of growing an orchid that gets to be fairly good sized mounted, adds to the impracticality of the growing method/media. Here in this case, the more practical method of growing would be to pot it up, but the choice of potting materials can be quite extensive, so as long as it receives the right amount of O2 to H20.

Yet another example would be:

I really don't think it would be all that appropriate or convenient to grow something such as Eulophia petersii in a Sphagnum moss type of media. Naturally, Eulophia petersii is an orchid that grows in semi-arid deserts on rocks - so, it grows drier than, say, Phalaenopsis. Sphagnum moss would, imo, retain far too much moisture for the plant to handle even in the short term, as well as not provide for enough air circulation to get to the roots, therefore eventually causing the roots to rot out if the plant was watered normally. However, if one were to adjust the watering schedule to where the moss would be moist, but be allowed to dry out for long periods in order to not rot the roots out, the chances for desiccating the roots would increase. Imo, it would be far easier to grow this orchid in a less water retentive potting media that can also provide better air circulation to the roots such as bark, diatomite, LECA, Hydroton, large grade perlite/sponge rock, lava rocks, or maybe even the same kind or similar kind of rocks that the orchid is naturally found growing on rather than Sphagnum moss.

Just my .

I do want people to know that I understand what James is saying. However, I just wanted to flesh out the details a bit.