Stuartiana 'sogo' help.
 

Hi I bought this Stuartiana a little over a year ago from a local greenhouse, and it was in great shape over 80 flowers and buds.

As soon as I got i home it deflated. The leaves wrinkled, many of the buds didn't open... you get the idea. I eventually cut the stem off so the plant could recover.

After I cut the stem off, it perked up a little but it continued to have some wrinkled leaves and some leaves were still droopy.

2 new leaves grew, but it has never been a healthy plant since.

This past February, It flowered. It gave me about 20 flowers. But the new leaves got wrinkled and drooped again.

Just today I cut the stem off. It is looking very sad. it has TONS of roots, no bugs, plenty of light (east window and t5 lights), humidity is low at about 30-40%. It is in bark, I repoted it last year. It dries out slightly between waterings...

I just don't know what else to do. I contacted the greenhouse owner and all he can tell me is that this is a species plant and they can be really finicky.

I should note that I took it outside for the purposes of taking the pictures.

Any suggestions?

Yours looks better than mine! :lol:

Mine's mounted and blooms every year but the leaves are kind of droopy and not the most beautiful. :(

I choose to ignore it:whistling

How often do you water and when you water do you give it a good drenching?

I water it about once a week when the medium is on the dry side. I let it soak for about 15 mins or so. Water at room temperature (i measure with a thermometer).

Is it near a heat/ac vent? Probably not, but thought I'd ask just in case. (this was my first big orchid mistake)

looks like a lack of humidity problem to me....maybe set a bit of moss over the top of the plant and keep that moist...gl

I've had a stuartiana for almost a month now in low humidity and it's doing fine- it's on a gravel tray with many other plants though. :/

It takes LOTS of energy to produce spikes with 80+ flowers. First, I'd confirm that the roots are in good shape - this means un-/re-potting; I'd also be concerned that your plant has only one (maybe two) pairs of leaves.

maybe try semi hydro, I have a phal that looked really sad, leaves were always wrinkly and soft, even though it had really great roots and even though I treated it exactly the same as my other phals which were doing really well.
so I put it in semi hydro about 2 months ago and it is looking great, new roots and 2 new leaves. some of the old leaves even firmed back up.

I have found lots of info here at the OB on the subject of semi hydro growing

good luck!

Sarah

Thank you all. I'll look into semi-hydro and increasing the humidity. I'll repot it as well. We'll see if it helps

I would recommend checking the roots in the potting medium as well. I have found that bark mixtures don't stay moist enough for some phals...I have one of these and it is in a sphagnum moss/bark/perlite mixture. I let them dry out in between watering due to the moss...with sphagnum moss it is easy for me to rot roots...but this one seems happy as a bug in it. Check the roots and let us know what the prognosis is! Something has got to be dehydrating the leaves!

I have it in a clear pot and it has tons of healthy roots. The only thing I notice is that there is some green moss growing in the pot. Is that bad? No bugs or anything.

The root tips are green... I really am baffled.

Clear pots are the way to go. Sounds like the roots are still good in the potting medium if you can see them. Maybe like others mentioned, it is just exhausted from blooming?

when was this repotted? is it green moss or green algae that you see?
Re: leaves - in some of your photos, looks like there's only one (maybe two) sets of leaves. Have leaves dropped? From the base of the stem (main plant) or near the crown?
This is a puzzler ...

It was repotted in march of last year. I don't know if it is moss or algae. I could be algae. It is growing on the inside of the pot on the sides. I have lost two leaves this past year. One of the newest leaves got some sunburn last summer when I took the plant outside to water and forgot it out there... OOPS. If you look at it closely you'll see that the second or third leaf is cut in half. that's the one that burned. This was months ago and it has flowered and put out two new leaves since.

I use clear pots for some of my phals and even though the roots look good through the clear plastic, I repot them every year after flowering.

The new set of leaves is a good sign but I would still repot the plant now.

PS ... algae on the roots can be harmful, especially if it's so thick that the roots suffocate.