Murasaki with brown, yellow, orange leaves - HELP!

[crnaylor03]

Happy weekend! I had this beautiful 'Zns. Murasakikomachi' on my coffee table for about two weeks. I noticed the side by the heater (which is blowing strong lately) started to turn a little brown. Now, it looks like this. Should I just cut off the bad leaves? Is there anything more I need to do to make sure the problem doesnt travel to the currently healthy leaves? I have already moved it away from the heater.

A million thanks!

[estación seca]

Hi crnaylor03. Zygonisias like cool temperatures, moderately bright light, high humidity and moist roots. They can be challenging to keep in a warm, centrally-heated room in the winter. They need very much more water than do many other orchids.

Yours appears to be potted in coarse bark. It needs to be watered enough that the roots stay constantly moist. This might be every day. It will depend on the warmth and air circulation in your home. Some people actually stand Zygonosias in dishes of water so they always have some available.

Putting it near a warm blast is not going to be helpful. Most people try to keep these in the coolest, brightest place they have.

[crnaylor03]

Thank you so much!!

[crnaylor03]

I cut off the dying leaves, watered the plant, and moved it to a sunny spot next to my humidifier. But the leaves keep changing! Help! One more is starting to go orange, and another has small brown dots. What's going on, and what do I do?

[estación seca]

It looks like it might have spider mites. They are common pests on thin-leafed orchids like this (and lots of other houseplants.) They are 8-legged beasties like ticks or spiders, and not insects. They pierce individual plant cells and suck out the juices, leaving damage that looks like what you have.

Take a tissue paper and rub it down the underside of a leaf. If there are brown or red spots you likely have spider mites. They also weave extremely fine silvery cobewbs, usually on the undersurfaces of the leaf. If either you see the cobwebbing or you have streaks on the tissue you need to treat your plant.

If you have spider mites, you can use a spray bottle to spray rubbing alcohol (70% isopropyl alcohol from a drug store) or water with liquid dish soap (1 teaspoon / 5ml to a quart / liter of water) on the entire plant. Be sure to treat the undersurfaces of each leaf, since that is where the mites mainly stay.

The spray will kill the adults, but not the eggs. For this reason you need to treat every 3-5 days for 4-5 sprays to get all of them as they hatch.

If you have mites on this plant, they are likely on all your other nearby plants, as well, so you need to treat all your nearby plants.

Miticides exist, which are different than insecticides. The problem is mites have a very short generation time and acquire resistance quickly. In commercial settings growers rotate among 2-3 different miticides with each use to limit emergence of resistance. I think the alcohol or soap spraying is better for home growers, and it is far less toxic for the people and animals in the house.

If you use the Search feature in the top maroon menu you can read more about how people here handle spider mites.

[crnaylor03]

I just wiped it down, but dont see anything on the tissue paper. The leaf is also now turning more orange. Is there anything else it could be?

[Dollythehun]

Delayed reaction? They like to be moist, cool, humid and good air circulation. It did not have any of those in it's original placement.

[crnaylor03]

Quite possibly a delayed reaction. Should I cut the leaves off once they're turning spotted and speckled? It's getting a lot worse, very quickly.

[Dollythehun]

If it were mine, yes and then I would move it to as close to optimal place as you can. I have a similar plant, whose foliage is not pretty...I let it get dry...once.

[crnaylor03]

Thank you!