2 Phal leaves wilting, curling, spotting on flower - Orchid Board

crazy4orchids · #1 08-15-2012, 11:08 AM

Hi all,

New to board and relatively new orchid mom, but have come on to visit and read threads. My phal has been doing fairly well for a couple of years, but suddenly yesterday, I noticed that one of her middle leaves was wilting. Later in the evening, a bottom leaf below that began curling her edges downward. Read online and wasn't sure what was going on as it seems there could be many reasons for these symptoms.

Since I recently repotted her several weeks ago with a new bark medium and the top roots look shriveled, I first thought I may be underwatering her since I have always fed her via the "ice cube" method once a week. I did thoroughly water her this morning, draining out the excess water.

While draining, I noticed some strange spots and shapes on her flower petals that appear to be new, and a new brown spot on an upper leaf!

-General care: Changes in the past several weeks may be around her repotting (gotten a yellow bottom leaf; discovered water was sitting in the bottom of the pot). She had a spike of 3 flowers; lost the outer flower a week later, and the innermost flower a few days after that.
watering/amount: She has been given the amount of water of 3 ice cubes most of her life, once a week. The only time I have ever given her a thorough watering before was right after the recent repotting and following a suggestion I read online. Since I have been so successful at watering her with the ice cube method, I had returned to that method in the past couple of weeks.
water/type of water: I used to use tap water that I would store for at least a week to dechlorinate. The past couple of months I have added a 1/8 t Schultz orchid food to a 1/2 gallon water. But online, saw suggestion to use distilled water, so have been using that the past couple of weeks.
misting: also have been misting almost daily. Have read that's not necessarily a good idea.
air flow: have left window open to air out room in the mornings for several hours.

Wanted to include photos, but discovered I can't as a new board member. Am I allowed to provide email address to allow for backchanneling? In case, to describe the spotting on her flower, there are three spots that are irregular in shape, occurring near the stem of the top petal, that appeared translucent and are now starting to brown as seen from the back of the flower.

Would appreciate possible explanations, and welcome any and all advice on general care.

Thanks for your help!

WhiteRabbit · #2 08-15-2012, 10:25 PM

Glad you found us.

Did you try attaching photos by uploading them directly to your post, or posting links to hosted images? At any rate - just post a few more times, and you shouldn't have any trouble.

It's possible the spots on the blooms are bacterial, and can be from misting.

crazy4orchids · #3 08-16-2012, 02:43 AM

WhiteRabbit,

Thanks for the (pretty) welcome. It's great to have found the Orchid Board. I look forward to learning more about how to take good care of my orchid. She's the first to survive after several failed attempts, and if the misting was the issue, I've been lucky that I haven't run into any serious problems until now though it seemed like the misting was useful. Would you generally recommend against doing it at all, or just making sure to mist early in the day to make sure all is dry by evening? Before this recent bout of problems, there was a strong root system coming from the pot.

By bacterial, do you mean it is a bacterial infection? Is that also what is causing the problems with the leaves? I don't see any new spots, but her middle leaves continue to droop.

About the photos, let me try to attach here again. This morning, the attachment screen linked to a home screen for the website? It seems to be working now.

If this is a bacterial infection, can she be treated? Hopefully it is not like a viral infection, which seems fatal.

I hate to see her ailing and want to get the treatment done as soon as possible!

crazy4orchids · #4 08-16-2012, 10:13 AM

I ran a fan near my phal yesterday to improve air circulation, in case that was a problem. The middle leaf is still wilting, but feels and looks stronger. There is still some curl to the bottom leaf but it also seems stronger. There is more spotting this morning (a few on other petals) on the flower, and I noticed the edge of some of the spots look green-brown.

Please help! Want to do something and get whatever I may need (all I have is fertilizer and repotting bark) to treat asap!

Thx in advance.

WhiteRabbit · #5 08-17-2012, 01:26 AM

Hmm I don't see anything that looks alarming - but I'm certainly not an expert. When you said spots on petals, I thought of botrytis (which I think is bacterial, but could be wrong) - yours doesn't look like that to me (but again, I'm not an expert). Treatment for botrytis is simply to remove affected blooms an increase air circulation.

By "middle leaves " do you mean the newest ones, or ones in between oldest and newest? Can you post pix of those?

I hope some other members will be chiming in.

Lagoon · #6 08-17-2012, 09:30 AM

Hi ya Welcome to the forum

Nothing is really shouting out to me. Can you get us some more pictures? Wondering more about those leaves.

crazy4orchids · #7 08-17-2012, 10:35 AM

Hi WhiteRabbit, Lagoon, and other readers,

Thanks for checking in on me and my orchid, WhiteRabbit, and for joining the conversation, Lagoon. New pics here!

Well, the update this morning is that there are a couple additional small brown marks on the flower which is now in the middle of fading. When I reflect back, I know I had begun misting the flower the last couple of weeks, thinking that would increase the humidity...

Yes, WR, "middle leaf" refers to one between the newest and oldest on the right side (photos). The middle leaf seems to have more strength closer to the stem, but is "floppy" further out. But it gnereally doesn't seem as limp as earlier (before I watered). The bottom leaf edges are still curled up, and concerning is, the upper two newest leaves are starting to “ruffle". And, the spot on the upper leaf from the earlier picture has lengthened a fraction, but is a light brown color.

I'm guessing the dark colors visible on the leaves and on the flower stem that are new are from the fertilizer in the watering a few days ago.

I took some pictures this morning. Any other picture requests, let me know.

Thanks,
Crazy4Orchids

crazy4orchids · #8 08-17-2012, 10:42 AM

I attached, but did some editing and now the pictures are gone! Let's try again...

Should attached pix show up in preview? Because they are not here. I will send and see what happens.

crazy4orchids · #9 08-17-2012, 10:57 AM

ok, this is not working for some reason. I have tried several times to upload the pictures, which I am able to attach, but see that there is a "request" being sent, but though I wait, there is no response from the website. On the last attempt, after several minutes, I just got a blank white screen. I will try one more time. If there are no pictures posted soon after this message, I will be back to try in several hours.

crazy4orchids · #10 08-17-2012, 11:05 AM

Apparently, it worked after all! Ok, so the trial run worked after all...

The flower picture in the last posting was from yesterday, btw.

Let's see if I can't get the rest of the pictures up...

Worked! And I see that the preview post does display attachments.