White spots and rotting on Cymbidium?

[bil]

Originally Posted by Dollythehun

This sounds infrequent until you consider the medium. I often buy IKEA phals, which are in the same type of mix. It sometimes takes them weeks to dry out. They do fine with infrequent watering and when I repot into bark, the roots look good. Go figure.

Bark is the way to go. In coarse bark with no fines, you can't go wrong, can't over over water and don't have to repot nearly so often.

As for fertiliser, it's probably the least important element of orchid keeping. The easiest, simplest and most natural way is to water with very weak fertiliser at every watering. Because it is so weak, there is no danger of salt burn

My philosophy with orchids is very simple. Keep it as close to natural as possible. Potting epiphytes in media is for our convenience, not theirs, and the denser the medium too more you are pushing them out of their comfort zone. Once out of the comfort zone, they are more prone to fungal and bacterial attacks.

Don't believe me? Google images of wild orchids growing on branches etc, and they hardly even have a bit of moss there, let alone water retaing medium.