Sickly nearly dead Potinara Cattleya

[Shadeflower]

SP, I trust your growing more than most on here, you have the nicest catts on OB but reading over this post and taking more of a distant approach to giving advice in future I can see how confusing trying to give advice can be...
Everyone has their own way of doing things and if we all grow orchids successfully then they are all good but could be very different from each other. As I have learnt there are far more ways to growing orchids than the way we have learnt to do it. I think that is the most important thing I have leant and it is not beneficial to think everything else is wrong.
I keep some of my recovery catts so wet water is dripping off them... It works for me, you know the saying you cannot overwater a mounted orchid so my trick to recovery is max hydration combined with max aeration. That is along with heat (heat dries) the hardest thing to achieve on a continuous cycle but if I can get it right then the orchid recovers. If not it declines.

To me discussing whether sphagnum works or not is not the most pressing point. The most pressing point is that this orchid has not done well for 5 years already and there is no point recovering it if the problem keeps happening year after year. The cause for all the roots having died off in such a drastic and repeated way by the stunted look of the orchid is what is the issue.

I'd bin this one, it's worse than anything you could buy at a shop. Could an experienced grower recover it? Probably, but even to an experienced grower I would guess this one would be challenging! It really has gone through a bit.

[SouthPark]

Hi Shade. I know just what you mean. It certainly can get confusing due to various different approaches - and various different circumstances and possibilities.

For that particular orchid - which has roots sprouting ---- that's a promising situation - for the orchid that is.

So then there are choices to be made ----- such as - if the orchid appears to be making a recovery - then could we choose to keep the medium as in, and let the roots grow into it, where they might become accustomed to constantly moist/wet conditions? ------- or to go for some other approach (eg. enclosed container with lights, maybe heating, circulating fan, humidity control etc.)?

The growing into constantly wet/moist media would be along the lines of hydro/semi-hydro/'water culture', firm-packed sphagnum approaches.

Getting the temperature and humidity etc to suitable levels, and avoiding disease (fungal/bacterial issues) are a few aspects to look into.

Binning an orchid that still has a chance to survive is not an option for a lot of orchid/plant lovers out there. True ------ us humans do kill heaps of plants and animals every day on the planet. But sometimes, we are driven to look after harmless, innocent plants that we chose to buy, take home, and to look after. It's like a duty of care or responsibility heheh.

But I definitely know what you mean! A lot of the details that you mention in many of your posts makes good sense.

[Leafmite]

I agree, leave the recovering Cattleya as it is until it is much stronger, perhaps with two or three healthy pseudobulbs. It is very important to be patient at this stage and not to try to rush this into new medium.

Good luck!

---------- Post added at 12:29 PM ---------- Previous post was at 11:55 AM ----------

Originally Posted by Shadeflower

I keep some of my recovery catts so wet water is dripping off them... It works for me, you know the saying you cannot overwater a mounted orchid so my trick to recovery is max hydration combined with max aeration. That is along with heat (heat dries) the hardest thing to achieve on a continuous cycle but if I can get it right then the orchid recovers. If not it declines.

To me discussing whether sphagnum works or not is not the most pressing point. The most pressing point is that this orchid has not done well for 5 years already and there is no point recovering it if the problem keeps happening year after year. The cause for all the roots having died off in such a drastic and repeated way by the stunted look of the orchid is what is the issue.

I'd bin this one, it's worse than anything you could buy at a shop. Could an experienced grower recover it? Probably, but even to an experienced grower I would guess this one would be challenging! It really has gone through a bit.

I agree that max hydration combined with max-air-flow and heat is the perfect way to get a Cattleya to recover. The water provides humidity even if the orchid doesn't have roots. Long ago, when the only orchids I could find where in need of rescue, I would wire the rescue Cattleyas on top of lava rock/basket pots in early summer (outside so that there was plenty of heat) and water like crazy. By the end of summer, the orchid would produce new growth and have a nice root system so I could remove the wires. This one might need a little more time than one summer.

I think that as the orchid is already progressing, it is worth saving. It will be important to learn what went wrong previously so that the orchid has a good chance of survival in the future.