Please guys, urgent help needed for my orchs!

[Yanquister]

To make a long story short, I was unable to take care or my plants due to an illness. Was out of commission for roughly 2.5-3 weeks. I returned home to all of my plants looking absolutely pathetic - guess the guy who promised to watch them turned out to be worse than a flake- (apart from the stapelia gigantea, but that's another board).

Anyway, on to the point: most of the orchids SEEM to be fine, just thirsty with a couple of yellow leaves on some -and some wilting on a few of the phals. however the den and the cat are brown and leafless. I cracked open a little piece of one and it was green (forget which one) and did the same to the other and...for lack of a better word...it was like an amber sap poured out.

I immediately gave them all their "bath" (soaked them in water) I'm hoping for the best, but have I done enough or is it too little too late?

Any advice or info? Should I just throw in the towel? I hate it so much because that cat flowered for me nonstop like clockwork and I hate to see it die. Any thoughts are appreciated.

(Yes I am still fairly new so please forgive me.)

[My Green Pets]

Brown juice is a bad sign. But three weeks is pretty quick for them to be in such bad shape. I left my phals and onc w no water for 15 days last summer and they didnt seem to care at all.

Have any photos?

[Yanquister]

The phals are fine, it's the other two that went from outstanding to horrible. The one at least has some green inside so I was HOPING, but I'll take pics as soon as I post this so please stand by! Thanks!

[Yanquister]

This is them....just can't understand what happened. They have always been so easy to care for, even to the point if forgetting at times and they FLOURISH and now I am at a loss

[Yanquister]

Other sad guy....

[Yanquister]

This was it literally the week I got sick...vibrant, great shade of green, healthy stalk (if that's what it's properly called), strong stalk, beautiful blooms....then dust. I'm so confused.

[AussieVanda]

How much time and effort have you got? You'd be surprised as to how resilient dendrobs and cats can be. I recently saved both a cat and a dendrob that I thought I'd completely lost. I did this - moved them away from everything else. Weak plants can bring disease to your collection. Hit them with a prevention. In my case phosphoric based as I suspected root rot. I then drowned/soaked them a couple of times in the first week in a seaweed mixture. They were then moved to a more shady spot. After that once a week overnight soak with seaweed and daily with water and fortnightly with my prevention treatment. Some (many!) weeks later both produced new growths and are now all happy once more. Then again yours may well be beyond hope and it would be cheaper to just go out and buy replacements!

[Yanquister]

Thank you so much for your reply! I'll try my best to follow your directions as closely as I can. I think the hardest part scout becoming, dare I say, obsessed with my orchids is that it truly turns into not only a hobby or passion but sentimental meaning. Lame, I know. But it still sucks. I'll keep my fingers crossed and I appreciate your help.

If you or anyone else has any ideas to add I'm ALL EARS!!!!

[AussieVanda]

Mate goodluck, I certainly can't promises anything, but for more advice there's a few on here whose opinion I rate very highly, Ray, ChristianoCR7, Bud (and apologies to others more qualified than me not named!) They can probably give you some sound advice as well.......James.....

[Yanquister]

Well hopefully they see this lost and chime in as I'm still new to the site for the most part lol

Thanks for your help, it's means a lot!