Yellow Leaves on Tsubotaara Melinda Marie

[Dollythehun]

That is an extremely full beautiful plant. If I could achieve that (or deerfern) we'd probably both be delighted. In fact, in your climate, or DC's climate, this might thrive. And maybe I'm dead wrong. Isurus79 grows this well in Texas. Perhaps he'll weigh in.

[SouthPark]

Dolly - it's awesome you and deerfern grow that. The flowers look beautiful! I'm very interested in this type now hahaha.

Just a moment ago, I did some online searches to see if there's any hits on this particular type of plant in Australia. No hits so far! Not looking promising. Will keep an eye out for this one!

[Dollythehun]

I'd send you mine SP but, that's a long trip.

[DirtyCoconuts]

i think you should just check the location of your ebay seller...if this plant had to go through some real cold (doesn't really look like flash cold damage) or was in a different climate, it could just be adjusting.

I have no advice as, as Dolly mentioned, my backyard does all the work with Zygote....i have no claim to any skill

those DO look like healthy roots and if you keep them moist that plant should find a comfortable "normal" and be fine....i suspect it will be much like Dolly said as she has walked this path

[Dollythehun]

TY.

[DirtyCoconuts]

Thank you, Dolly for the benefit of your experiences.



Also, leaves also get yellow on these guys sometimes and stay on....
Zygote and butterfly by J Solo, on Flickr


clearly it is a totally different set of conditions but the coloring ALONE is not always concern

[deerfern]

Thank you all once again for all your posts and helpful advice.

My plant lost the second leaf and the 3rd one is getting yellow. But the buds are getting larger.

I did take it out of the pot to dry as I thought I was over watering (again). Let it get moist and put it back in it's pot, and watered. A few hours later... it seems like it's soaked.

Should I leave it that way or put it in a slotted pot tomorrow so it drys out a bit faster?

Plant came from Bogalusa, Louisiana, near New Orleans.

I really don't like spaghnum. Someone said I should be careful and not use it until I understand it. I think they are right, but it seems all the plants I get are mostly in it.

[aliceinwl]

I don’t have this one, but I do have a lot of Zygopetalum types. I don’t typically like sphagnum, but these guys do well in it. If it’s like other Zygos (or at least mine) it may not be very tolerant of root disturbance/ bruising. It’s best to be very gentle if repotting and only remove what old substrate shakes off.

They do like air in the root zone, so a permanent move to a slotted pot may not be a bad idea. They don’t like to dry out, as soon as the top of the moss starts feeling dry, it’s time for another watering.

I really like it when they develop a live layer of moss at the surface. As soon as the live moss looks a bit on the dry side, I know it’s time to water.

[SouthPark]

deerfern ----- at the moment, there isn't a 100% certainly about whether the yellowing is due to just the behaviour of this orchid (ie. normal behaviour, not causing harm), or whether it was due to too much water in and around the roots (caused by the media having too much water).

If the roots have been checked, and if it appears that the roots and media were quite watery, then a safe approach will be to keep the media and roots pryed out for a little while to get the roots and media back to a lightly moist state. And then pop roots and all back into the pot, and then all watering from that point onwards will be to only add enough water to keep the sphagnum lightly moist ---- not overly wet.

Naturally, when we water the sphagnum, the water first gets into the top layer, and then (after some time) is meant to get wicked around, or spread around the rest of the sphagnum medium (down below). A firmly packed sphagnum (but not so tightly packed as to cause damage to the plant) helps with the wicking of the water. Apparently, loosely packed sphagnum is more prone to becoming soggy messes (which is probably worse for roots).

Overly wet roots without enough water movement can lead to roots running out of oxygen.

It may be ok for you to keep using 100% sphagnum. The water content in the firmly packed sphagnum just needs to be less than a 'certain' amount. The grower usually eventually develops an idea about what that amount is ----- for keeping the state of the roots and media under control.

[Dollythehun]

I use clay pots exclusively. That allows air to the roots. When the moss approaches dryness, I water. I keep them in pretty small pots too. Just drizzle the moss, you don't have to soak it. All these zygo hybrids have different parents. Some are fussier than others. I don't think you did anything wrong.

Deerfern, I also have LOTS of air circulation on mine. That's part of the evapartion cycle that allows me to keep them damp but not soggy.