Why does my Phal have all the flowers wilted and none dropped? :-/

[Shikitita]

Hi there!

After all the different posts I've written and the help I've received from a few of you, I've decided to write another one as I am not sure what seriously is going on with one of my orchids.

I have had this Phal (pictures at the end) since April 9th, and has had all the flowers on display since mid May. About 3 or 4 weeks ago (when the heat wave came here), the flowers started to wilt and now they are all of them as you can see in one of the pictures. I water her every once a week, the roots seem all to be healthy enough (the ones inside the pot at least) and also the leaves, but hasn't grown any new leaf yet and the flowers, despite their aspect, haven't droppred at all, not even one of them.

Is it normal what's happening to my orchid? Should I water her a bit more often? All of them have pebbles inside their ceramic/glass pots with a bit of water to keep them humid, but it doesn't touch the pots or reach the medium at all.

Is my orchid just too stressed and doesn't know if focusing on the flowers, leaves or roots? Help!

Thank you very much to all of you!

[NYCorchidman]

Severe underwatering.
You want to soak the entire pot like RIGHT NOW for 10 minutes or longer.
Then drain completely before placing the pot back to its decorative container.

The flowers are wilting because the plant is dehydrated, but it wants to hang on to the young flowers.

Flowers can drop any minute now though. so go ahead and soak the roots.

I hope they come back looking fresh and new again.

[Silje]

Wow! Well, there's a first time for everything, I suppose. I've only ever seen over-watered phals in the beginner section on this forum.

Good luck with the soaking. The plant should be fine, by the way, but the flowers might be lost.

[Shikitita]

Thanks!

Should I still do it even if I already watered them today? (The pictures were taken before I did it this morning.) I guess I should and hopefully there wouldn't be any harm in it.

I already made the mistake last year of soaking the two orchids I had then for 20 minutes at night during Summer. That's why this time I'm being more careful, so watering them once a week with enough water but trying not to run the risk of overwatering them.

They've been doing pretty well so far, but I think this one, because of the amount of roots she has, is why it's taking her less to absorve all the water and therefore doesn't have enough... Maybe?

I will do it tonight so at least, with this heat, the water won't evaporate. Thanks again!

[Silje]

I'd rather water early in the day and let it dry out before evening, if I was you.

It generally better for avoid rot.

I think we've all been there, getting ourselves a phal and just showered it to death with love and affection and waaaay too much water. You're on the right track, you just got to be a tiny bit more generous.

[Shikitita]

LOL

I will wait then till tomorrow morning to do it and get another bottle! (I have two at the moment.) I keep the water in the bottles for a few days so it is not straight out from the tap when I use it for the orchids.

The best thing is that my first orchid, which I had to throw away a couple of weeks ago, was the exact same colours and patterns as this one, so it didn't hurt much when I lost her. I think of my first two as my first experiments in this house. Now that I know how things go and how to do things better, it's going much smoother and easier with my orchids from this year. (That and also the step of asking for help here.)

[NYCorchidman]

I water my plants at night sometimes and never had problems.

Soaking for 20 minutes is not going to hurt plants. I sometimes soak for hours because I forget about them.

As long as you drain well, there is going to be no problems. Then again, if the plant was already in bad condition or the mix was sour, yeah, then something might happen.

with your phal so dehydrated at the moment, if you want to save flowers, I would soak it right now.