Help me save my humble Paphiopedillum Collection
Hello all,
I have been keeping orchids for two years and have been having an issue with my multifloral paphs. As a newbie I was able to get a mauidae type to bloom and grow but I just can't seem to get my multifloral culture down.
The smaller orchid is a Paph Rothschild and I bought it as a 1 inch seedling two years ago. It grew well, albeit slowly and produced a couple of new leaves. Everything was going fine with it until this summer when I was on vacation and neglected to have it watered for about a week (big mistake). It has steadily been going downhill. the bottom leaf got these brown spots that started to consume the leaves from the tip. I have slowly lost 2 leaves since July. I re potted it a month ago and it still had some firm roots.
The other orchid is a paph michael koopowitz, which hasn't done anything at all really since I bought it last year. Recently it lost a leaf in a similar fashion to the rothschild although it does look like it is in better shape. I repotted it a while ago as well and it has better roots than when I bought and repotted it when I first bought it.
Both of them are potted in fine bark, perlite, charcoal, with a very small amount of oyster shell and a tiny amount of broken down sphagnum. I water 2 times a week in the warmer months and in the colder months I water them once a week. They are in a window with supplemental lighting (Cattleay in bloom next to them).
I have been using tap water (my tapwater has very low TDS) mixed with distilled water. I have a TDS meter that I recently got and a pH meter and I coming to find that water parameters are a lot more important for these orchids than other varieties and I am not really sure what I need to give them to get them to thrive water wise to get them to thrive (or if that is even possible at this point).
Are these plants hopeless? I really would hate to lose them. Frustrating because I got a dendrobium spectabile to bloom and a cattleya to bloom within 6 months of starting this hobby but I can't seem to get Orchids I really like to thrive.
The one with the bad leaf is the rothschild the bigger one is the michael koopowitz
|
Threaded Mode
