Help me rescue my orchids! - Orchid Board

na06003 · #1 06-23-2010, 06:19 PM

Hi everyone! I am new here and am in desperate need of help!

I bought three orchids last summer, but unfortunately did not do much research on their care before hand.
One of the orchids (a large phal) rotted completely and died... I'm assuming from over watering and lack of sunshine. The other two orchids did okay... until my cat got a hold of them!!!

LUCKILY my boyfriend was majoring in plant biology. He took them from me and put them in the green house at school and took care of them for several months. In May I went to retrieve them from him to take back home and was pleased to find that all the leaves had grown back and there was even new root growth!!!

So I took them home, put them far away from the kitties, and found a spot that I thought would be plenty of sunshine. I started doing my research and getting excited about actually caring for them this time around.... and then at the end of the day, my sunny spot I picked out had sunburned my poor plants!!!!

A few days later the leaves were getting dark and mushy. I did a bit of reading on this forum and decided to cut off the mushy leaves and put cinnamon on the cuts. From that point, the mushyness at least stopped spreading.

A few days later I decided to repot them, thinking that might be better for them since they were still in their original pots anyway. So I cleaned all of the moss out of their roots, and cut the dead roots away. I put them in clean pots with orchid bark only. It's been about a week and so far they look okay... but they still look very sad.

I've been giving a good watering once a week, but misting them daily. They are sitting in a window behind a sheer curtain, so they are getting some mild filtered light.

What can I do to help them heal and to encourage new growth? Are the steps I took correct? Will they make it??

In the future, once they are revived, how can I be a better mommy to them?