Tornado. Yes, They are TOUGH!

[Optimist]

We had a tornado touch down no more than a mile away from the house on Thursday night. Four twisters, hours of sirins. Golf ball sized hail. Three nights of rain followed. All the orchids have been outside since May First. The roots are growing like crazy. A little oncidium cross (used to be called a Carpentera) with no roots was in a cup of rainwater for three days streight.Result? Not root rot, but new roots. I am seeing amazing things with just natural rain water, wind, and sun. Finally got internet service back. This is my first post. I'm wondering if anyone else has had the same experience. Orchids love crazy weather!

[lotis146]

Originally Posted by Optimist

We had a tornado touch down no more than a mile away from the house on Thursday night. Four twisters, hours of sirins. Golf ball sized hail. Three nights of rain followed. All the orchids have been outside since May First. The roots are growing like crazy. A little oncidium cross (used to be called a Carpentera) with no roots was in a cup of rainwater for three days streight.Result? Not root rot, but new roots. I am seeing amazing things with just natural rain water, wind, and sun. Finally got internet service back. This is my first post. I'm wondering if anyone else has had the same experience. Orchids love crazy weather!

Holy wow! I can feel your excitement although I don't envy your conditions. Glad you are unharmed but rather have POSITIVE results after such an event. It'll be interesting to hear what others have to say. Got pics??
Nervous to leave mine outside so putting a few for a few days. We're supposed to have rain in a few days, nothing crazy, maybe I'll put some out during it except that I don't think they're due for a watering then!

Hope your good fortunes continue! Thanks for sharing with us.

[tarev]

Never had tornado here, but I did leave one of my Onc containers, inside another container with no holes, went about watering my orchids. After three days, I glanced on that Onc, and realized oops I forgot to remove it from the other container, so root zone area was totally in water for those number of days. But it did not harm the plant at all, actually made the pbs a bit more plump, though still left with some wrinkly outer skin..but definitely better, and roots are actively showing too. That is how I found out just how much of a water hog the Onc are especially during warm weather days. I guess it worked too since there is good airflow around it, even if it was in water, and got hot, it still felt cool and ably drinking up the moisture it needed.

[lotis146]

That's very cool, and helpful at that. My Onc's bulbs look pretty sad really and I just repotted and discovered lots of rot. Now that I have in new media I hope to make it happy.

So you said it rained for three nights/days afterwards?? I want to let my small outside group (temporary placement) get some rain but I just watered. I would imagine that hot temps make all the difference when it comes to them receiving that much water all at once. Do you have Phals? How do they take the rain in their crowns?

[LovePhals]

Yes the phals can get rainwater in the crown overnight and be fine. I have had two phals in pots outside when it has rained overnight several times. It seems rain water is ok overnight for them. I have one that had rain in the crown this morning and I poured it out and noticed a new leaf coming!

[Optimist]

I have mostly cattleyas, oncidiums, a few dendrobiums, five phals, three cimbidiums, a spathoglottis and a masdivalia. 3 phals are in semihydro, and two are fairly new in good shape. The ones in semihydro are trying to grow their roots back because I am a serial phal killer. They take one look at me and curl up and die. The 3 are doing okay, are outside, and are growing roots but not the crazy roots of the catts and dends. The oncidium in question is Carpentara (they probably changed the name) Austin Powers, then something about summer. The other two phals are on their sides because I pot them so that they lay across the pot, not stand up like petunias. They don't get crown rot because they are laying on their sides, I guess. Oh it rained for three nights, not both day and night. We got hit by on tornado. Three were in the area, and four spotted. Crazy night.