Various Ailments with my Phals, and Oncidiums

[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.

[Dollythehun]

Your links don't work. We'll need pictures.

[ElfOwlLover]

I updated the original post, the pictures should be visible now.

[Ray]

It's hard to tell from photos, but I see what looks to be a lot of dead roots and dehydrating plants.

[Dollythehun]

Ditto Ray. That's painful. What has your care been like?

[ElfOwlLover]

I try to water them whenever they seem dry, maybe every few days? I also suspect that the window where the oncidiums are is not bright enough. Should I repot them, trim the dead roots, and them place them in a brighter location?

Also, any idea on what could be causing the discolouration on the phals?

[Dollythehun]

The Oncidiums: You water them how? I don't see a reason to worry much about the phals. Are the spots spreading? None of my many phals is perfect.

[ElfOwlLover]

They don't seem to be spreading, so I guess thats good.

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

[emmajs243]

Man....sink watering is tough. And time consuming. I normally have to soak my plants when watering which I know there are a lot of mixed opinions on but I do it very carefully. I am just FAR too impatient to run them under the tap water for as long as they need I've come to learn.

So basically, I just bought some SOLO cups for my seedlings and some 32 oz. deli containers or a similar type of containers in the sizes I need and I write the plants tag name on it with a sharpie. So every plant has its own container to be soaked in. After every watering I wash them, air dry, and toss them in their sharpied individual ziploc baggie and stick it behind the plant OR now that I am getting a larger collection, I just toss all the ziplocks in a container or trash bag and pull them out when needed....Idk if the ziploc is really necessary but it's not too bad when you don't have tons of plants. Then I pull it out and line them up kinda in groups....if I have sick plants there cups go in a separate area then the healthy ones. Spray each cup with a spritz of physan 20 and while that's soaking for ten minutes I start carefully flushing each orchid over the sink, then again, carefully putting them in their container making sure I don't drip into other containers. Then fill them all up with either water or fertilizer/root stimulant solution depending on what they need and do other stuff for 10-20 minutes. NOW, mind you that is in bark. It looks like you have your orchids in sphagnum moss which probably would only need like 5 minutes or less.

The beauty in using a slightly taller container that truly fits more snug around the orchids pot...instead of having orchids draining for 15 minutes after being watered all around your sink on dishes, you can just dump their container, give it a rinse and plop the orchid into their container. All of my containers hold the orchid pot at least 3/4 of an inch off the bottom of the watering container so they can drain right into their watering container and go back to their spots to drain. Then I just double back and collect the watering containers with the excess water in them for washing. Just being careful to keep them all separate from each other.

Idk if all of that is truly necessary, I tend to over complicate matters! But it has made watering at the sink MUCH quicker. And I'm not frantically trying to find things to drain orchids on and wondering if it is truly clean or was used last time with a sick orchid and whether or not I disinfected it yet....Idk. I'm a worrier....If I really have somewhere to be I can just plop them in their empty watering container to drain and walk out the door because I know the run off won't be near the bottom of their pot and I haven't found that leaving them like that for an hour or two with a little less airflow really bothers them.

Now idk what others will feel about this method BUT, it works for me. Idk, I just can't imagine how long I would have to stand with an orchid pot watering it otherwise. I feel like with sphagnum it would be less but still....in my VERY little experience, orchids may not want to be watered constantly but when they do get watered, they like a GOOD watering.

My Phals especially seem to enjoy their soaks. And from what I've heard, Oncidiums are water lovers and use a lot! Correct me if I am wrong but I believe I heard a lot of comments about how it's so hard to mount oncidiums because they do just need too much water.

[Dollythehun]

"Idk if all of that is truly necessary, I tend to over complicate matters! "

The bark is too large, oncidiums require watering before they are dry. Smaller bark, more frequent watering.