About how I got started with orchids. 1st post.

[LarryAJ]

Thanks for the welcome(s).

To add to the above long winded tale , I forgot about the two phalenopsis that Steve, Janet's son, gave me from a friend of his. They were in really SAD shape. He had overwatered them so when I went to repot them there were NO roots at all. I kept them alive by keeping the root stalk, if that what you would call it, in water. After over a year one of them just gave up and died. At this point I figured drastic action was needed. I pulled off the bottom leaf to reduce the transpiration. Then partially tore the next leaf up from it. Into the wound I packed Roottone. It finally started growing a new leaf in the joint where the Roottone was packed. It is now got good roots and four leaves, the newest is a good size.

From that success, I have tried more "rescues". One was from Food Lion. It was a yellow phalenopsis that looked almost dead in the store. I found a clerk and told her I was interested in this one but not at full price in the condition it was in. She took it and found the store manager. When she came back the manager had written on the pot, "No charge"! Whee!! I immediately repotted when I got home and it now has five bloom spikes. Three are old ones that had blooms but where the bud at the top of the stalk is still green. The currently blooming stalk is over twice as high as the old ones but has just one blossom. AND there is a new stalk growing that looks like it will be as big as the last one.

Another was from Giant grocery but that I was only able to get half off on. Still better than full price for a nice white phalenopsis with red lip. I got one nice bloom stalk from it. Then what looked like another stalk starting got bound up in coming out of the leaf. When it finally broke out it was like a new plant. This "new" plant now has three nice sized leaves plus the small misshapen leaf that was the bound one AND a new bloom stalk!

May be I can get some more pictures up. I will have to hunt thru all my floppy disks to find good ones to post.

OK! Bed time. Gotta quit for now.