Your worst orchid care Failures that led to your greatest Successes later

[SaraJean]

So I am in no way an experienced grower but here we go...
My biggest failure is fighting my climate. My biggest success is using my climate.
My first batch of orchids drained me. I was constantly battling high temperatures and desperately trying to get orchids to dry out in the super high humidity and almost daily rain. Had things potted in plastic pots, most of my dens, phals and catts were in an appropriately sized bark mix, had warm tolerant orchids in what I thought was perfect light levels, and basically tried to grow things by the book rather than taking into account where I live. My oncidiums were stressed to the max and not growing, all of my phals had serious root rot, the dens all had sunburn, the catts mostly died off from infection setting in after the sunburned leaves and unhappy roots could never dry out... I was just was sooooo discouraged.

Then I started working with my climate. Things started to go up on mounts. My traditionally potted orchids went in clay pots with leca and/or lava rock that dries quick, but with the frequent rain and always present breeze, stay nice and cool. I haven't lost a single orchid to rot since I started doing this. I started using semi hydro for all of my oncidium types and have had amazing results since the roots can stay moist, airy and even a little bit cooler. I backed off on the sun, put up a shade cloth, and moved some orchids under my palm tree. I tried to find warm-to-hot, wet growing, and humidity lovin orchids which lead me down rabbit hole genus known as Bulbophyllums. They are the only ones that I grow in straight sphagnam, some in plastic bulb pans, some in net pots, others in clay, and the rest mounted... and I gotta say- Most are growing like darn weeds
(except you, little b. dearei ). Even after most of my bulbos got their roots eaten clean off by snails, the super high humidity kept them all hydrated enough to where I didn't lose a single one. Barely any work on my part to keep these happy!

So I'm sure I have other failures, but that has my biggest one, to date, that had turned out to be my biggest ally

[KokeshiHappyGreen]

SaraJean thanks for sharing! Sounds familiar to what I had been trying to do: go by the "perfect" by-the-book
(Or what others suggested as being so)...rather than my own grow space per se. Really good to know that going by our parameters, and how our orchids show us themselves, we can have greater success at growing them!

Keep up the good work!
Would love to see some of your orchids in their diff growing media/applications 🌞

[Beatrice]

I'm a beginner at this but I saved one plant that had contracted crown rot by burning it with a match...

I burned the infected crown (it hissed) and briefly touched both sides of the leaves with the flame as there was also a small area of rot on one of them. Then I didn't water it for a few weeks to make sure anything evil dies off completely.

The plant didn't show any signs of life for a few weeks after that, but then suddenly the air roots started growing green tips again and a basal keiki appeared!

The plant now has a sad-looking burnt shell in the center but otherwise it's doing fine.

I'm sure this is not the professional way of doing it but it worked and was the first time I saved a sick plant from dying!