Miltassia Shelob 'The Weed', repotted and possibly in trouble

[Dalton]

Hey, everyone. I've got a Miltassia Shelob 'The Weed', that was my first orchid, ever. I repotted it recently and I think it might be in trouble.

Here is the story on it. I bought it around 6 years ago. It was hanging in the store in a perforated plastic bag, with another bag rubber banded around the pot to hold in moisture. I know I personally walked past it for 2 weeks before buying it as I didn't have a lot of pocket money at the time. I don't think it was very expensive, I'm just very tight.

Anyway, I brought it home and immediately repotted it. The soil was completely broken down. I repotted it in straight orchid bark and that's what it's been in it's whole life, till recently. It took it 6 months to show growth and 4 years to bloom. Now it puts out a new bulb and blooms one spike from it a couple-three times a year.

I've only had to repot it a couple of times in the last 6 years. The bark has held up really well and the only reason I had to repot was because it kept climbing out of it's pot.

Being my first orchid, I made plenty of mistakes with it. One time I thought it would like to be on the front porch with just a touch of full sun in the morning and bright shade the rest of the day. It might like that, but I guess I didn't acclimate it and burnt the plant badly. I brought it back in and it recovered, but because of rookie mistakes like that, I haven't ever divided it, only cut off the bad bulbs.

Recently, it started out growing it's pot again. I decided that while the older bulbs didn't look fantastic, that this was the first time I thought I could divide it. I cut it in half. one "plant" had the four oldest bulbs and the other "plant" had the 5 newest. As you'll be able to see in the following picture, it had a lot of roots. More than I thought it would. I ended up having to trim the longest ones to get it jammed in the pot. Possible a mistake in retrospect. I probably should have just bought a larger pot.

I've been watering this plant about once a week for it's life time. I've never fertilized much and I plan to change that. I wanted to adjust the media, because as you might be able to see from some of the pics, the older bulbs are pretty shriveled. It's just not cutting it. So I added some LFS to the mix. I tried not to put a massive amount in the mix. I tried to keep it around 1/4-1/3 of the mix and I scattered it throughout the bark. I figured it would still be well draining, but provide some water reserves for the plant.

The plant with the newest bulb seemed to take to it really well. The old bulbs didn't unshrivel, but they felt firmer. The newest bulb really plumped up and got fat and tight, without a wrinkle to be seen.

That was on 4/11/2016. Over the last couple of weeks, I've noticed that there has been some shriveling to the newest bulb. I'm letting it dry out, at least down to a knuckle or two on my finger before rewatering. I don't want to rot the roots.

I'm just worried that it was fully plump and is now shriveling some. It's mostly on one side of the bulb. It also has a spike that had just started when I repotted. I didn't want to, but it really needed it and I figured it wouldn't hurt much since the spike had just started. It's now a couple of weeks away from blooming and seems to be doing fine.

I just don't know if it's something to worry about or not. I'm guessing it's a combination of the older bulbs drawing on it, the spike drawing on it, and the change of media. I don't think it's damaged roots, because I only trimmed the longest ones on the older bulbs. I didn't mess with the ones on this division. I hope the roots aren't rotting or anything. I guess I could repot it again and reduce the sphag, but it did really well there for a couple of weeks.

As far as I can tell, the shriveling isn't getting much worse since I noticed it. It's just kind of holding for now. I just don't know why it was so good before and not now.

So I'll post some pics below. One is from the repotting and simply shows the plant and root mass. The second two are the newest bulb, post repot, from the front and back. You'll notice that he back of the bulb isn't nearly as shriveled as the front. Thanks for the help.

[silken]

I don't see anything to be real concerned about. I find these don't like to totally dry out and since I have been watering mine more, they seem happier. I am moving away from mixing sphag and using only medium bark or Orchiata that is a bit smaller than medium bark but not real fine. I'm not sure what # it is. But then I need to water more often. The plants I have moved have done well. Old roots do have trouble adapting to a change in media so the older part of your plant may struggle until some new shoots can develop. Usually older shrivelled bulbs will never plump back up so don't over water trying to achieve that. So long as the newest bulb is fairly plump it can be your water guide. Since it is shrivelling a bit, it may need more water with a spike developing and new media is dryer and holds less moisture than old. There is a thread here about using skewers you might want to read. I use them in most of my pots to gauge how wet the media is. Just get some thin, inexpensive bamboo kebab skewers and place one down into the media and leave it there. Pull it out and see how wet it is to determine if it is time to water. Then put it back in the same place.

[Optimist]

I would not think that the older bubs will ever bloom. It is kind of like Iris. The newest, youngest bulb blooms, and then, that bulb will never bloom, it will just provide food to the other new growths. Since you cut it in half, it can go back in the same pot. Fertilizer definitely will help.

These plants do like a lot of water. The smaller the roots, the more water they like. If you have good drainage, then how much you water really does not matter. Many orchids (in the wild) in their growing phase which often coincides with monsoon or rainy seasons, get rained on every day, as well as have thick mist over night. The wood and other things near it are always moist or damp. The winter is often the dry season in this hemisphere. Even so, there is still the mist, and still the rain, but less.

[Dalton]

Well, I can certainly water it more. It does have good drainage, being mostly bark. I was just worried about keeping the sphag that is there, totally soaked all the time. I was worried about that rotting out roots that were in direct contact with it. I just don't understand why it plumped up nicely and then pooped out on me.

I did repot the newest bulb in the same pot and leave it where it's been for years. The only thing I really changed was I tilted the rhizome down horizontally to see if I could do anything about it climbing out of the pot.

It gets high humidity whenever anyone showers and it seems like it stays fairly humid, because the sphag on top doesn't dry out for about a week and a half. Whereas the other plant, in my room, might be dry on top, though still moist deeper in the pot, within 4-5 days. Maybe sooner. I haven't paid that much attention to that one.

I know the old bulbs will never plump up. I'm not trying to get them to. I also know that they won't spike. I tend to leave them on till they get really bad. It's usually time for a repot at that point and I'll take off all the really old ones. I left them this time so that the new "plants" had energy reserves.

I can try the skewer. I actually have some bamboo chopsticks that would probably work well. I don't know what I'm looking for, though.

If we're saying that we're treating it like monsoon season and watering more frequently, I doubt it'll ever dry out. As is, I'm watering whenever I can stick my finger a knuckle joint or two into the media and fill little or no liquid.

[silken]

I agree to leave most of the old bulbs on till they die. They do support the plant. Maybe you don't need a skewer if you stick a finger in. The skewers can go deeper and say what's happening lower in the pot. If it is soaking wet, or barely damp etc. if there is a lot of sphagnum now, you could remove some. It may just be the toll of producing a spike that is keeping the bulb from plumping up fully. Not all my blooming Oncidium bulbs are totally plump, but they are not all withered and that works for me. My Sharry Baby currently in bloom has a large plump bulb, but it does have ridges too, although it is all firm still. Same with my Onc, Tiger Crow.

[Dalton]

Maybe the next time I water it, I'll soak it as opposed to showering it from above. I can let it soak for about an hour and see what the bulb does. That may indicate whether it's a lack of water or another issue, depending on how it responds.

[Dalton]

Just a quick update. I submerged it up to the pot rim and let it soak for about 2hrs last night. I didn't notice an appreciable difference between the picture I took before and after the soak. I also don't notice much difference this morning, either.

It still feels plump, but there are those grooves running down the bulb.

[silken]

I think it is fine as is. As I was saying my big Sharry Baby with two spikes from that bulb is the same. It's the shape of the bulb. Not really meant to be round and smooth but plump and gently ribbed.

[Dalton]

Just wanted to give an update on this plant. Initially, I divided this plant in half and repotted it in the same type of medium orchid bark, with the addition of some LFS. That was on 4/11/2016.

Initially, the newest bulb plumped up and looked really good. Then I started seeing some shriveling, no matter how much water it had. That was after about 4-5 weeks when I started this thread.

It's now 8/12/2016 and I wanted to give a progress report. As of right now, the bulb is almost completely plump again. I think because of the initial shriveling it won't get any better than this, but the creases are almost invisible. It just started plumping back up recently, so that been ~4 months that it was looking bad.

I have both divisions in different places and they're doing very differently. Both are healthy, but I've noticed different patterns in them. The one I potted using the 4 oldest bulbs is in the exact same mix in the same type of pot (ceramic with hole in the side and glazed on the outside). It's sitting in my room under a windowsill. It dries out much faster than the one in the bathroom. I have them on pretty much the same watering and fertilizing schedule. It started to put out a new shoot very quickly and it's currently still in growing phase before the actual bulb starts forming and bulging out, but it's ~5" tall.

The one in the bathroom typically takes several more days to dry out. It has also started a new growth. It's very small however. It's still basically a nub.

So that's my update for now. Thanks for the help everyone.

[estación seca]

Great learning and teaching experience! With a good outcome!