Transport disaster – sunburn & heat ruined my new phals - Orchid Board

TracyLee9 · #1 02-11-2014, 12:45 PM

I could just cry…I bought 3 beautiful new phals from the nursery for my new home. I already had 3 at home (2 years old), all of which were nearing the end of their blooming phase after enjoying them for 4 months

So I wanted new ones in bloom. I needed to make a quick stop before getting them home…ended up not being such a quick stop, about 45 minutes. Devastation!! When I got back to the car I saw that they were now in the sun (they were mostly in the shade when I made the stop) and the flowers were drooping and the leaves looked a bit burnt (going darker, with purple round the edges). And it was HOT in the car. So I got home and put them inside and I gave them some water (probably not the best idea either, but I just panicked and didn’t think it through properly!)

At first I was just really disappointed that now I was losing flowers and they’d probably all drop off soon – what a waste! And I wasn’t too terribly concerned about the leaves, they were just a slightly darker shade…not ideal, but they would survive. Until I woke up the next morning to see how badly they had deteriorated. Going Brown, shrivelled, soft, not even able to support themselves and folding over

What now? I can see the drooping flowers are not going to “undroop” …and only time will tell if the other flowers start drooping and dropping…sucks yes, but I’m ok to take care and be patient for next year’s bloom. My concern is the leaves. Is there anything I can do to stop the deterioration…or anything I must not do? Just leave them and see? Water / mist / humidity / light / temp etc? My house has a number of rooms with varying degrees of temperature and light…mostly warm to very warm with medium to high (indirect) light…one cool south facing with medium to low light. What is best while they recover?

I posted some pics. From far away they still look beautiful…but close ups reveal the leaf devastation

calypsoB · #2 02-11-2014, 12:49 PM

owwww...that's a bad burn! One the upsides I usually don' loose the entire leaf to burn, but the brown parts will crispy up. Though you have a few that have the entire leaf burnt so I would expect losing those. You might want to keep them in the shade for awhile to recover.

WhiteRabbit · #3 02-11-2014, 09:18 PM

Unfortunately, the damage is done

lepetitmartien · #4 02-11-2014, 11:56 PM

Yup, only thing you can do is give them a quiet place to nurse them back to health and for the coming months, check they don't catch something nasty.

Be quick if anything starts that isn't leaves drying up.

TracyLee9 · #5 02-13-2014, 06:36 AM

Looks like they have stopped deteriorating, but I will still monitor morning and night. I've put each one in a different room for now...it's a new house, so I haven't yet worked out which room has the best conditions. In my last house I did the same thing and when I could see which one was the happiest, I moved the others to join it. Soon they were all blooming! Fingers crossed with these guys.