Onc. hybrid very dehydrated- special care or just treat like usual?

[Fishkeeper]

I can't get any photos to upload, but I've found a nice oncidium hybrid (I assume) that's not in the best shape.
Its potting mix (looks like peat/perlite?) was bone dry, and its two pseudobulbs are shriveled up and less than a quarter-inch thick. One of the pbulbs has no leaves, the other has two smallish ones and two large ones that are halfway cut off due to being halfway dead. It's in bloom, two branching stalks with at least 20 flowers each, but about 1/3 of the flowers are crunchy dry, 1/3 are wilted, and only the last third are healthyish.
I cut a couple slits in the pot to check on the roots, and they aren't so good. A lot of the ones on the outside of the pot are brown and very fragile, and the healthier-seeming ones are still brownish. They're very slender roots, I'm sure they died quickly once the pot got really dry.

So, what do I do with it? I've given it a nice long soak. Do I just keep it lightly moist and let it recover on its own time? I don't want to mess with the media if I don't have to, it doesn't look like it'd come off easily and I don't want to upset the orchid any further than it is.

[fudJy23]

If you're really hesitant about repotting it right now, perhaps place the pot in a terrarium type environment so it has extra humidity? If you don't have a good container (plastic bins/aquarium/other) to put it in, maybe just tent a plastic bag around it to hold in the moisture? Just keep an eye on it and make sure it gets some air movement so the humidity doesn't cause mold. Also, I'd soak the pot for an hour then let it drain.

Normally, if I feel an oncidium isn't getting enough water and continuously has shriveled pseudobulbs, I'll change out the media at the next replanting. Many of mine tend to go from bark to a bark/spahg mix, to all sphag. Some end up in a semi-hydro environment because they suck up so much water, especially in the summer.

[Fishkeeper]

Some of the flowers have filled back up with water since being watered, so evidently there are some healthy roots in there to soak up water. Given that, I don't think I want to repot it just yet. I don't think the media is the primary issue, I think this plant was just not watered at all.

If I repot this plant, clean off all the dead roots, knock off most of the media, and pack it in a new media, what are my chances of it losing all those flowers? I'd rather avoid that if I can, since it doesn't seem to be an emergency repot situation.

I'll probably pot this in sphagnum with a big handful or two of bark mixed in. My other oncidium hybrid seems to be doing pretty well in a mix like that, it's fairly loose without drying out fast.

[fudJy23]

No idea on likely hood of it loosing flowers.

Hooray for viable roots! Perhaps for now, just pay closer attention to it and keep it moist/watered?

[Dollythehun]

That's the mix I use now with good success. I agree you could wait but what's best for the overall health of the plant? Follow your gut as we can't give you odds on the flowers.

[Fishkeeper]

Finally got the pics from yesterday up.

The lady at the checkout asked if I was sure I wanted the plant, since it looked "really sick", and I can see why she thought that. It didn't look so terrible to me, though, just incredibly thirsty. And, from how it's reacting, I think I'm right.


The flowers are part of why I got this one. They're really nice, the ones that are in good shape. Some of them are edged with white, too, and they're a great color. Lots of them, too. Granted, that's two stalks that were probably encouraged under stress, but I hope it'll bloom well once it recovers as well.


These are the bulbs yesterday. They've plumped up slightly today, but they really didn't look good at all, still don't. Poor thirsty thing.

Every part of the plant that holds water is looking better, so I think the only major problem was no water at all.
I've decided that, if it continues to improve and shows no further signs of distress, I'll wait to repot until it drops most of the flowers naturally. If there's any indication that it needs to be out of that media, I'll repot now, and damn the flowers.
For now, it seems like it's doing OK. The lack of leaves isn't a good thing, clearly, but the remaining pieces look to be in decent shape and seem to have grown before the dehydration happened. I think the store just didn't water this poor thing.
All the hybrids looked thirsty, but this one was the worst. I'll check the roots carefully when I repot to figure out if they're in decent shape, and if they are, I'm going to assume that this one just needs a lot of water.

I notice its bulbs aren't as tall and slender as oncidiums, plus the flowers are small, so I think this has more of something else in it. Not sure how to tell, though. Anyone have a general idea of what might be in there so I can try and figure out exactly what it likes?

Right now, it's near a South-facing window that's keeping a zygo hybrid and an onc hybrid happy, and I'm going to keep it constantly moist but not sopping wet. It's in a peat mix in a plastic pot, but there are a couple gaps in the side of the pot because I cut it partly up to look at the roots.

[Dollythehun]

Peat or spagh? I wouldn't use peat and looking at that medium scares me. I meant a spagh, bark and leca or cork mix. What it us in now looks like it would suffocate the roots. Get it out of there and into a proper mix and it'll throw some new roots, I'll bet!

[Fishkeeper]

On second inspection, the media wasn't draining well at all, so I've taken your advice and repotted. I cleaned as much peat as I could off the roots without yanking on them, but I didn't cut any roots because I couldn't tell the difference between the not-great ones and the potentially dead ones.

The orchid is now in a larger pot, in a mix of mostly sphagnum with some bark, charcoal, and large chunk perlite. I made sure to gently stick some charcoal pieces among the roots to make sure they didn't get packed down with sphagnum. The mix should stay nice and damp without being suffocating. I poured water through the pot until it was nice and damp, and I used water from a shrimp tank, so it should have a small amount of fertilizer in it. I also staked the plant so it has support until the roots get established.

There were healthier roots further into the media. I found a patch of completely healthy, firm, white roots wrapped into a little ball of sphagnum that I think was the original growth media back when this plant was a baby, and some dubiously healthy roots nearby. My guess is, suffocating or not, this media was dense enough to keep some moisture around those roots and keep them alive.

[Dollythehun]

I am exhaling a sigh of relief. Thank you

[Fishkeeper]

That stuff practically felt like potting soil when I took it out. I grow sundews in a peat mix, but they like to have wet roots, they don't need to breathe like orchids. Must be how the grower keeps the plants from dying of dehydration too fast at the store that doesn't water them.