Various Ailments with my Phals, and Oncidiums

[ElfOwlLover]

Alright, thanks for the advice. I'll try soaking them for a little next time I water, and maybe I'll be able to find some smaller bark in the near future. Hopefully that will improve their condition a bit.

[emmajs243]

Hahahahaha! Oh man Dolly! At least I am honest with myself and others! Hey I am still adapting from the the "fear stage" of orchids! Meaning, when your new to orchids and watching stuff, it ALL seems to be about problems and filled with don't do this, don't do that! They do a very good job at putting the fear god into a person!

AND, let me add. I have come to realize recently that I complicate matters because I don't really "Know" any of my plants yet. Well besides two. I just looked up the other day and realized suddenly, "Hey, I trust you two!" And now I don't worry NEARLY as much about those two and interactions between the two.

But because I am SO new to anything but sick rescue phals, and I am SO use to ALL my orchids being in one level of isolation or another, I try really hard to make sure everyone stays far away from each other....well unless they were ordered together. But you know what I mean? I feel like once I finally have a collection built up of orchids I really trust and know, things won't be so challenging. As of right now, just about everybody in my house is new to me besides my two very first babies and I only recently realized that I could be more relaxed with them!

---------- Post added at 08:20 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:06 PM ----------

Best of luck with them!!! I hope it helps....before I had quarantine plants all over my house I really just found a clean item, spritzed with alcohol and gave it some time to sit then rinsed and soaked! BUT I live in a small little house with little counterspace and so I kinda found what worked for me with where my plants are and I dread water day so much less!

Truly hope your plants improve!

[aliceinwl]

I agree that the leaf spots on the Phal wouldn’t worry me. I also agree that the Oncidiums could use repotting to a finer mix.

I used to aggressively trim off dead roots, but I’ve found my Oncidium types recover much more quickly when I leave all the roots on (even the dead ones). Yours don’t seem to have a large mass of dead roots so I wouldn’t recommend any trimming.

[emmajs243]

Oh!!! That's a very interesting tidbit on incision types recovering faster when not trimming all the dead roots away! I'll have to keep that in mind!

[ElfOwlLover]

Thanks for all the advice, I truly appreciate it! Hopefully they will recover with a few improvements in terms of care.

[Mountaineer370]

Originally Posted by ElfOwlLover

When watering my orchids I usually take them to the sink and water them with the tapwater.

ElfOwlLover, welcome to the Orchid Board!

FWIW, I don't soak my orchids, either. I take each one to the sink and give it a drenching with watering cans (tap water) that I let set overnight on the counter. That way, I know the water is room temp and hopefully some of the chlorine has evaporated. I don't drench for an extended period, maybe ten to twenty seconds, depending on the size of the plant.

Of course, I'm down to only eight orchids right now (along with some other plants). I suppose my method would not be easy or convenient for those with large numbers of plants or plants that are a long way from the sink.

[emmajs243]

Man! idk! I just feel like with some of my orchids in large airy bark, like my phals...the bark never gets fully wet. And their pot/media has always dried SO fast. I guess that's when I finally started soaking them. I do have orchids that are bare rooted that I just run under the tap water and depending on the media I do it with a few others.

I do live in Idaho though where it's dry enough to begin with but add in heaters running, its dry! My humidifiers keep up beautifully BUT I can only expect so much when my humidity is only at 30% or lower without the humidifiers! So, maybe that's why it seems they dry out SO much faster? Idk. I also am bad at watering super often during the work week so I can't be having plants bone dry for too long! With just the tap water method it would be like 2-3 days and they would be dry as a desert again!

BUT all of our environments are different and each of us have a different tendency to water too much or not enough so you have to find what works for you! I would soak those babies these first few weeks just because they are so dehydrated! Then from there, find what keeps you and your plants happy!

[Mountaineer370]

Originally Posted by ElfOwlLover

Recently I have been having a lot of problems with my orchids, and I thought this would be a good place to get some input. One of my phalaenopsis is beginning to get some yellow spots on its leaf, and another one has a leaf that is getting a discolored tip. It also seems as if all my oncidiums are doing very poorly. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Back to this, is anybody besides me seeing that the oncidiums appear to be in a lot of sphagnum moss? Maybe it's just the way it looks on my monitor. ElfOwlLover, can you tell us exactly what kind of media you have both your Phals and Oncidiums potted in? I don't think you've said yet. You also wondered in another post in this thread if they needed more light. I would say, if you have the option of giving them more light, do it. Not direct sun for any length of time, but brighter than Phals like.

[Dollythehun]

Cheri, some pics look that way, others it's really hard to tell. Either way they look very dehydrated. Elfowllover, what exactly is in those pots?

[Ray]

"Dehydrated" can have two, totally different causes:

Either they are underwatered, or the potting medium has suffocated the roots and killed them, so the plant simply has no way to take water up in the first place.

My guess is that you're dealing with the latter.