Sphag 'n' bag for rootless Onc. Twinkle

[Reeses]

My Twinkle has not been happy with my S/H experiment My Zygo and Paph have been doing fairly well, so either I did something different with the Twinkle or it's just not the right medium for it. It's down to two pbs, and all of the roots are desiccated. I decided to try a variant of the "sphag 'n' bag" technique to see if I can revive it.

I soaked in in a K-L-N rooting hormone solution, dunking the leaves, too, since it doesn't really have any roots to absorb the solution. Then, I put it in a small glass container and lined the bottom loosely with some moist sphag. I put a Ziploc baggie over it, but didn't seal it, and then I put in on a heating mat on my north-facing window.

Is there anything else I can do for it? One thing I'm not sure about with this technique is watering. I let the sphag soak and then squeezed it out before I put the Twinkle in it, but I feel like with the heating mat it might evaporate faster (hence the baggie). But, if it does dry out, would it be best to mist it to get it moist again? Or take everything out, soak the sphag some more, and repot? (The glass container has no holes, so I can't just run water through it).

Thanks as always for the advice!

[orchidsarefun]

interesting experiment. I have always read/heard that these must dry out between watering and thus do well mounted. I let mine dry out thoroughly and its potted up.
If I was you I would take it out the bag, dunk it for 5 minutes and return it, just making sure the sphag is slightly moist.
Whatever you decide to do, let us know...

[King_of_orchid_growing:)]

I wouldn't have recommended using S/H for Onc Twinkles. They are so easy to grow using the traditional small grade bark method, why even bother using another method?. You're not going to make them grow any faster than they would automatically. These grow lightning fast, there's no need to worry that you won't get them to be specimen size; if you grow them right, they'll get to specimen size in a matter of 3 - 4 years.

Onc Twinkles do like to dry out between waterings a bit.

Oncs are usually pretty difficult to recover once they dwindle down to only 2 pseudobulbs.

In the future, if you're growing Oncs and relatives, ideally, don't let the plant go down below 5 pseudobulbs if they are in distress if possible.

I do wish you good luck. I think you've done what you could for it.

[Reeses]

Thanks for the advice, guys! I got a little too excited when I discovered S/H--probably didn't do as much research into the needs of each individual plant as I should have. Now of course I realize it wasn't the best choice for the Twinkle, at least at that time....the roots weren't actively growing when I transplanted it. Guess now I'll just have to wait and hope for the best!