gigantea arrived today... Worried
 

Hello,

I purchased a phal gigantea from Clown Alley Orchids and it arrived today! I was very excited to open it up but when I did, it just didn't seem right! The first thing I did was take to OrchidBoard and post photos for you all and ask for advice. Pretty much all but the top two leaves appear to be dying and the bottom leaves have some weirdness to them, do they look diseased to you? Anyways, on to the pictures! Any advice is appreciated.


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natural senescence IMO.. old leaves and you can pull them off if you like or they bother you. The top looks very good and healthy. Bottom leaves almost always are reduced to skeletal remains for food to feed the growing plant. I would not worry. Clown Alley are good people and wouldn't send you any sick plants. Sometimes they dont look so great but you might learn to get over that. I havent :bowing

Thank you so much.... I trust them as I have been communicating with John for a while now but my fears come from giganteas being known for susceptibility to disease. The top leaves are lighter in color, I will take another picture and show you. I know that silvery coloring on these guys is good but I want to be sure that's what is it!

Again, I appreciate your input!

Here are the extra pictures! It was hard to get accurate colors with my lighting but these are close.

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thats a great lookin gigantea and you got a very good price on it too :) Johns a good man.

heh I used to help plant some of his flask and would re pot older stuff up from the greenhouse and I just worked for orchids and to learn ;)

he has some really cool nice small dendrobiums that are fairly odd and hard to find. I love going thru the greenhouse and digging stuff out that he occasionally would forget about. I learned a lot from working around John and his sidekicks. They are all just one big happy orchid growing bunch over there. He does a lot of shows to so you might even catch him close to your home one of these days :waving

I sure hope you got a great deal on the gigantea, that looks nasty. As a seller I'd be ashamed I sent that.

RJ maybe right, that the bottom leaves are dying due to natural senescence but what has me concerned are the rings that can be clearly seen. Are those from fertilizer? If not, the plant could be virused.

Then I'm not sure what's going on here, but if you look closely you can see little white specks (circled) on the leaves. Do you have any way, like a loupe or magnifying glass, to check these out?

I'd also be concerned with the change in color on the leaf (lined), can't really tell what's going on there.

Just in case anybody suggests that you repot, please know that gigantea resent repotting. You should really only do so when the plant is in active growth and is sending out new roots. A popular way to grow is by mounting which allows for proper draining so water does not collect in the crown. Giganteas are very susceptible to crown rot.

I know from your other post you really didn't want to have to spend alot, but sometimes it pays to spend a few more $$ to get a good plant. One of the reasons I suggested the plant listed on Ebay. For $70 it was a really good price for the size and you could see the plant beforehand, looked healthy and no yellowing leaves. Plus Peter is a seller you can trust!


Wishing you luck that whatever issues it has can be resolved.


Judi

Judi,

Thanks for bringing that to my attention, I did some research on Clown Alley and they seem to be trustworthy. These signs, the rings are what worried me most. How can I tell what they are?


Someone told me that giganteas will have a silvery sheen to the leaf when grown in correct lighting, I had assumed that area you lined was a part of the leaf that faced away from the light and didn't take on the silvery sheen. That leaf does curl under just a little due to the weight of the leaf.

I spent nearly $70 on this guy. It is a good size so if it indeed turns out to be healthy, it was a good deal.

I am feeling very relieved!

I reached out to John at Clown Alley for guidance, he told me that there was something on the leaf of another gigantea at his greenhouse (probably fertilizer) and water caused the weird shapes. Sure enough, I lightly scraped the surface of the leaf and it came off! The leaf now looks like what I'd think a dead/dying leaf should look like. The circles are gone! This is the same leaf with the circles on it, the same side.

Thank you again Judi for bringing that to my attention!


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Are Phal. Gigantea normally pretty expensive? I have no idea so I'm asking. I spent $20 on mine which I thought was reasonable. Personally, I'd be upset if I received a plant that looked like yours. Normally, I agree with the posters here on OB, but I have to disagree with RJsquirrel on this one.

I hope he is right that the plant is healthy. I'm a huge fan of Clown Alley Orchids, but even the best make mistakes sometimes. Just because a nursery is known for healthy plants doesn't mean they are free from error. I would be in contact ASAP with the nursery to see what they say.

That leaf just looks dead and the top ones look pretty good to me. If it has good roots it will probably be fine. Good luck with it
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keep in mind greenhouse grown plants arent subject to the same tender loving care we give them at home. when you have 10,000 plants in a greenhouse none of them get very much special attention. Im surprised that some of you are still expecting grade a top shelf plants that are orchids.

I don't like ugly plants either but just to be ugly doesn't have to indicate a problem. If its just ugly its probably just an Orchid.

Im glad you talked to John.. Thats always the best source of advice is from the source of the plants.you did well ;)

and Im very curious now were he was keeping these. I know where everything is at and in my feeble mind I cant place them in the greenhouse. I know he has a huge gigantea thats not for sale thats probably 30 years old. As far as giganteas go I just dont know where he has the rest of them. I have to go look this weekend now and grab me one of them too :biggrin:

Well, that is a relief! Glad those rings were able to be wiped off. They looked like they were inside the tissue.

Thanks everyone! The plant is currently receiving quite a bit of bottom heat and about 65% humidity. Anyone have any other tips to give this little guy a shove in the right direction? The roots look a bit dry so I've topped the media with hydroton to keep some of the moisture in.

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It's great that it was only fertilizer and not the signs of virus!

Why shouldn't we expect a grade A Plant? Aren't we paying our good hard earned money for it? Just because a plant is not getting the same kind of care grown in a greenhouse doesn't mean it should look nasty.

If anything, I would expect it to look much better supposedly being grown in optimum conditions. And lets face it, plants in a greenhouse aren't subjected to the bumps and bruises and knocking over or knocking off a shelf that might be experienced growing at home. How often do you think a plant gets picked up and looked at in a greenhouse.

I'm not knocking Clown Alley mind you, just the plant Justin received. Would you rather have gotten the plant he was sent or the one I mentioned on ebay for the same $70? Seems like a no brainer to me. :twocents: :)

Judi

I feel the same way Judi, I definitely expect a grade A plant. Just vigor in general is important. I'm hoping that it sends out new growths soon! Does anyone have any tips? What do you do for care when you receive a plant in the mail?

Here's an update for all of you.


The gigantea I purchased died. I contacted the seller and explained what happened and they did offer to send me a replacement which I was happy with. Fast forward a few days, the plant arrived this morning. The replacement was a third the size of the original plant even though they have two sizes up for sale on their site and I paid for the larger of the two, they sent me a small one. Even more importantly, the plant they sent me has literally no functioning roots and parts of the leaves are decomposing. Attached are photos of the replacement.

In summary, if you want to be upset, offended and out some money I would recommend purchasing from Clown Alley Orchids. NOT.

Allow me to repeat, do NOT purchase from Clown Alley Orchids. I am so livid and upset right now.

What are some online vendors you guys purchase from? I don't live anywhere where there are local orchid vendors.

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Wow, that's not a healthy plant.... :( It's very good of them to send a replacement if the original was healthy and no reason to think it would soon die, but to send this, this is just wrong... Definitely email them about it, and see what they say.

What happened to your original plant? Aside from the nasty looking older leaves it looked great, and with nice roots.

Oh Justin, that really stinks!

While the leaves on this one look much better than the last that doesn't mean anything if it has no roots!! Once the roots are gone its especially hard to keep giganteas alive. Very very difficult to get them re-establised.

I would suggest contacting Peter over at Big Leaf.

Big Leaf Orchids.

gigantea is his speciality (hence the big leaf name) and while he doesn't have any listed in his store within your price range, he may have another (like the one he had on ebay and I posted a pic of) in his greenhouse. At the very least he may be able to offer you some tips/tricks you could try on your latest disaster.

And I would definitely email Clown Alley with a pic of the latest.


Judi


As an edit: If Peter has one in his greenhouse that your interested in, he will send you pics of the plant if you ask for them. You could also ask him to check on the roots too. He's very good like that.

I agree, I was so happy when they agreed to send a replacement plant but when I found this.... I was so offended and upset. I could not believe that they would offer me this and think it was fine.

I told them that it had indeed died and was expecting a reasonably healthy plant of or near the same size. I'm not sure what happened, I think it was due to transport shock. When they sent me the original the plants leaves were right up against the cardboard of the box. There was newspaper insulation below the leaves but that didn't help the leaves.

Thanks Judi. I definitely learned my lesson on this one. I think I will wait until my birthday or Santa visits me and I'll ask for a gigantea haha. I'm going to try to get a refund from those clowns, if that doesn't work I'm just going to have to cut my losses and look forward to the plant I purchased from Peter! I haven't received it yet but here's one of the photos he took:

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One thing I learned about growing giganteas ... Keep the leaves dry. They can be fussy about getting water in the nooks and crannies bacteria and fungus love them. I lost a largish mature plant by getting a sun burn on the crown. One of my favourite orchids.


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